Former President Donald Trump appeared to confuse former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with GOP presidential rival Nikki Haley over claims of “destroyed and deleted” Jan. 6, 2021 evidence Friday at a New Hampshire campaign rally.
Trump incorrectly told an audience in Concord the former U.N. ambassador was in charge of the law enforcement response to the Capitol riot in an apparent moment of confusion.
“You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know they— do you know they destroyed all of the information and all of the evidence?” Trump said. “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 Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”
The Biden campaign pounced on Trump’s gaffe on social media, correcting the intended reference to Pelosi without disputing his claim she purged evidence related to the Jan. 6 riots.
“A deeply confused Trump confuses Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley multiple times: Nikki Haley was in charge on January 6. They don’t want to talk about that,” the Biden-Harris HQ account wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
A deeply confused Trump confuses Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley multiple times: Nikki Haley was in charge on January 6. They don’t want to talk about that pic.twitter.com/f3lhWgAzUw
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 20, 2024
Trump compared the size of his crowd, which he said was “not quaint at all,” to the sizes of Haley’s campaign event audiences. The GOP frontrunner said Haley “gets like nine people” and that the media “never reports the crowds.” (RELATED: Nikki Haley Suggests ‘Joining Forces’ With DeSantis To Defeat Trump)
The former president also claimed to his audience that Haley was “not tough enough” to be his running mate. Haley nixed the idea of becoming Trump’s vice president earlier the same day, stating she “doesn’t play for second.”