The former South Carolina governor has been careful about how and when she criticizes the former president. New Hampshire will test her approach.
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Nikki Haley is stepping up her criticism of Donald Trump on policy issues: “Those are things he needs to answer for. Oh, that’s right! He won’t get on the debate stage,” she swiped on Wednesday night.
Nikki Haley might have come in third in the Iowa caucuses, but as she campaigns in New Hampshire for its first-in-the-nation primary next week, her attention is squarely focused on only one rival: Donald J. Trump.
Ms. Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, has begun fine-tuning her argument against her former boss, trying out new jabs and unleashing a new attack ad right out of the gate. She has also stepped up her efforts to frame herself as Mr. Trump’s top rival, announcing that she would no longer participate in primary debates that don’t include him.
In recent remarks and in a new television ad, Ms. Haley paints Mr. Trump and President Biden as two sides of the same coin: politicians past their prime who are unable to put forth a vision for the country’s future because they are “consumed by the past, by investigations, by grievances.”
At a campaign rally on Wednesday in Rochester, N.H., she fended off Mr. Trump’s attacks on her immigration record, warned voters not to believe his ads against her and reminded them that it was Mr. Trump who had wanted to raise the age for Social Security eligibility and had once proposed increasing the gas tax.
“Those are things he needs to answer for. Oh, that’s right! He won’t get on the debate stage,” she swiped.
In Bretton Woods, N.H., where she held her first rally after the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday, Ms. Haley said she had voted for Mr. Trump twice and was “proud to serve in his administration” before delving into her familiar critique that, whether fairly or not, “chaos follows” the former president. But she also took a few more acidic digs.
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Source: nytimes.com
