GOP presidential candidate and second-place finisher in New Hampshire’s primary Nikki Haley blasted former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying his anger over her performance reflected his insecurity with her own strength in the Republican nominating contest.
Trump handily won the New Hampshire race on Tuesday, bolstering his bid for the Republican nomination and prompting fellow GOPers to flock to endorse him. But Haley did better than some polls anticipated, and she has vowed to remain in the contest. That decision prompted fury and indignation from Trump.
“So we got out there and we did our thing and we said what we had to say, and Donald Trump got out there and just threw a temper tantrum, he pitched a fit,” Haley told supporters in her native South Carolina on Wednesday, which will hold the next competitive race in the GOP primary season. “He was insulting, he was doing what he does.”
“I know that’s what he does when he’s insecure, I know that’s what he does when he is threatened,” she continued. “And he should feel threatened, without a doubt.”
Haley’s campaign has continued to hit Trump over his mental competency and the “chaos” he brought to his time in the White House. Earlier in the day, her spokesperson said the former president had reminded voters “they have a choice between two diametrically opposed visions: Make America Unhinged Again or Make America Normal Again.”
Trump’s anger carried over into Wednesday.
On Truth Social, the former president said Haley’s bid was “demeaning to True American Patriots” and said she was bad for the Republican Party. He then pledged to bar anyone who donated to Haley’s campaign from participating in his Make America Great Again movement, although it’s unclear how he planned to do so.
“When I ran for Office and won, I noticed that the losing Candidate’s ‘Donors’ would immediately come to me, and want to ‘help out,’” Trump wrote. “This is standard in Politics, but no longer with me.”
“Anybody that makes a ‘contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp,” he continued, using a derogatory nickname. “We don’t want them.”
Haley used Trump’s rage to make her own pitch for leadership and describe what another Trump term would look like.
“Out of everything that he said in his rant, he didn’t talk about the American people once,” she said. “He talked about revenge.”
