Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley shined the spotlight on Donald Trump’s mental health on Saturday, after the former president falsely accused her of failing to stop the violent assault on the US Capitol on January 6 2021.
Trump, speaking Friday at a campaign event days before New Hampshire’s first primary election, appeared to confuse Haley with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Referring to the January 6 insurrection by a mob of his supporters, Trump, after saying his rival’s name several times, told the crowd: “Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people – soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want – they refused. They don’t want to talk about it.
Haley, Trump’s main rival in the New Hampshire race, pointed out that not only was she not responsible for security at the Capitol, but she wasn’t even in office at the time.
“They say he was wrong, that he was talking about something else,” the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor said at a rally in New Hampshire.
“What concerns me is that I’m not saying anything derogatory, but when you’re dealing with the pressures of a presidency, we can’t ask someone else if they’re mentally fit to do that.”
Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden, 81, because of his age and raised doubts about his mental fitness to serve a second term.
The comments from Haley, who turned 52 on Saturday, were among the most direct challenges by a fellow Republican to the mental health of Trump, who is 77.
Haley said political candidates over 75 should take a mental competency test, and she expanded on that point in an interview with Fox News on Saturday.
“We need people at the top of their game. We need people focused on national security… Do we really want them throwing out names and getting it wrong when they’re 80 years old and they have to deal with Putin, Xi and Kim? and North Korea? We can’t do that.”
Trump’s suggestion that Pelosi — or Haley — had refused an offer of help while the Capitol was under siege also raised questions.
The House committee that investigated Jan. 6 said it found no evidence he made such an offer.
Critics say Trump is showing increasing signs of aging, and the former president himself addressed the issue earlier in the week, repeating how he “passed” an acuity test by correctly identifying animals such as a giraffe, a tiger and a whale.
But this affair seems to have done him little harm.
Far more voters surveyed expressed concern about Biden’s age and fitness, and Trump — who dominated the Iowa presidential caucuses on Tuesday — remains the overwhelming favorite among Republicans nationally .
