Haley, Trump campaign before the New Hampshire primary
Haley questions Trump’s mental fitness after he mistakes her for Pelosi
KEENE, N.H. — Haley questioned Trump’s mental acuity after he mistakenly suggested she was responsible for security during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots instead of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Last night, Trump is at a rally and he’s mentioning me multiple times as to why I didn’t take security during the Capital riots,” Haley said. “Why didn’t he know Jan. 6 better? I wasn’t even in D.C. on Jan. 6. I wasn’t in office then.”
“They’re saying he got confused, that he was talking about something else,” she continued. “He’s talking about Nancy Pelosi. He mentioned me multiple times in that scenario.”
Haley then questioned the former president’s mental sharpness, saying, “We can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this. We can’t.”
During a rally in Concord last night, Trump falsely blamed Haley for not providing adequate soldiers in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots. The former president seemingly meant to name Pelosi.
“Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it, because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people,” Trump said.
Trump has previously accused Pelosi of turning down 10,000 soldiers on Jan. 6, a claim that has been debunked.
Stefanik says Trump ‘has not lost a step,’ denies he mixed up Haley and Pelosi
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., balked at the idea that Trump has “lost a step” in an interview with NBC News, insisting that despite the former president mistakenly referring to Haley instead of Nancy Pelosi at a rally last night, it “wasn’t a mix-up” at all.
“The reality is Nikki Haley is relying on Democrats, just like Nancy Pelosi, to try to have a desperate showing,” Stefanik said.
Pressed by NBC News that Trump was talking about Jan. 6 when he misspoke, Stefanik doubled down: “President Trump has not lost a step. He is a stronger candidate” now than in 2016.
Stefanik also dodged multiple times when asked whether she’d vote to certify the 2024 election results should Biden win again.
Asked whether she wanted to join the ranks of Trump’s potential running mates, Stefanik said she’s “focused” on her job in Congress and that “it’s a long time between now and November.”
Stefanik appeared this morning at Trump’s campaign headquarters in New Hampshire, where she was met with “VP” chants.
Police won’t charge former Florida GOP chair with sexual battery, forward voyeurism allegations to prosecutors
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Christian Ziegler will not face sexual battery charges, but prosecutors will consider whether to charge him with video voyeurism stemming from a monthslong investigation, according to a statement from the Sarasota Police Department.
The investigation started after an Oct. 2 sexual encounter between Ziegler and an unnamed woman, who later alleged to police in a complaint that Ziegler “raped” her. After interviewing dozens of people and reviewing surveillance footage, the police department in Sarasota, where Ziegler lives, determined it was “unable to develop probable cause” for a charge of sexual battery.
Police did, however, send a probable cause affidavit to prosecutors for video voyeurism, a felony crime, because Ziegler allegedly taped the sexual encounter without the woman’s knowledge, the Sarasota police said.
Sununu: Haley ‘doesn’t have to win’ N.H. primary
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a key Haley backer, said on Fox News this morning that the former U.N. ambassador “doesn’t have to win” Tuesday’s primary and that it was “never the expectation” for her to do so.
“If Nikki Haley was winning huge against Donald Trump right now, people’s jaws would drop,” Sununu said. “That was never the expectation.”
“She can win. She doesn’t have to win,” Sununu went on to say. “The goal was always to make it a one-on-one race.”
Asked about Sen. Tim Scott’s endorsement of Trump, Sununu called it “disrespectful.”
“As it was noted, Nikki actually gave him his job at the U.S. Senate,” Sununu said, referring to Haley appointing Scott to the seat in 2012 when she was the governor of South Carolina. “For me, I find it disrespectful more than anything.”
Trio of South Carolina Republicans to attend Trump rally tonight
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and two Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation, Reps. Russell Fry and William Timmons, will attend Trump’s rally tonight in Manchester, according to three sources familiar with their travel plans.
McMaster, Fry and Timmons were early Trump endorsers this cycle, joining the former president’s 2024 South Carolina leadership team and appearing with him at an event in January 2023.
The move is an attempt to counter Haley, the former South Carolina governor, as she tries to build momentum in the final days before the New Hampshire primary.
It also comes as DeSantis campaigns today in South Carolina, where he hopes to gain traction among the state’s more conservative electorate ahead of the Feb. 24 primary.
Another South Carolina Republican, Sen. Tim Scott, endorsed Trump at a rally in Concord last night. And Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was an early supporter of Trump’s 2024 bid.
Haley to air 3-minute closing TV ad in N.H.
Haley’s campaign will air a three-minute TV ad in New Hampshire on Monday as part of her closing argument to voters on the eve of the state’s primary.
The ad features Cindy Warmbier, whose son, Otto, was murdered by the North Korean government in 2017 during Haley’s tenure at the U.N. Haley has shared Cindy’s story in her book about female leadership, and Cindy spoke at Haley’s presidential announcement in Charleston in the spring of last year.
And as much as the ad is about Haley’s leadership on the world stage and moral conviction as a mother, it also provides a contrast with the way Haley and Trump talks about dictators like Kim Jong Un.
A campaign statement about the ad said: “Donald Trump played an important role in bringing Otto’s body home and holding North Korea accountable, but he switched his tune when he ‘fell in love’ with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump publicly absolved Kim of Otto’s death, saying, ‘I don’t believe that he [Kim] would have allowed that to happen. … And some really bad things happened to Otto — some really, really bad things. But he tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.’”
A three-minute long ad is unusual for campaigns, which typically air 30-60-second spots on TV.
Trump maintains lead in N.H. tracking poll
The latest Suffolk University/NBC10 Boston/Boston Globe tracking poll finds Trump maintaining his double-digit advantage over the GOP field heading into Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.
Trump is at 53% among likely voters, followed by Haley with 36% and DeSantis with 7%. Those numbers have been largely consistent in the tracking poll throughout the week.
The survey of of 500 likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire was conducted Jan. 18-19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
Where the 2024 candidates are today
With three days to go until the New Hampshire primary, Trump will hold an evening rally in Manchester. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., a possible vice presidential choice, is attending a Trump campaign event in Manchester this morning.
Haley is set to hold four events in the Granite State today as she attempts to close the gap with Trump.
DeSantis, who is mired in the single digits in the polls in New Hampshire, is looking ahead to South Carolina. He has three events on the schedule today in the Palmetto State, which holds its GOP primary on Feb. 24.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s long-shot challengers, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and author Marianne Williamson are campaigning in New Hampshire ahead of the state’s unsanctioned Democratic primary.