WAUKEE, Iowa — Former President Donald Trump is amplifying false conspiracy theories regarding former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley‘s citizenship and her marriage as he tries to counter her rise in the polls, particularly in New Hampshire.
The line of attack echoes his unfounded, but effective attacks, against former President Barack Obama, and offers a preview of how nasty the 2024 Republican primary could become as Trump uses the race as part of his legal strategy against the civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions against him.
Trump has criticized Haley’s policy positions, from taxes to immigration and foreign policy, drawing unflattering comparisons between her and former President George W. Bush in the past. He has also attempted to portray her as disloyal, inauthentic, and untrustworthy, as he did with 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, reiterating to crowds she and DeSantis will “betray you just like they betrayed me” and that they will “sell you out so quickly.”
But before Iowa‘s caucuses on Jan. 15, the Republican Party’s opening nominating contest, and New Hampshire’s Jan. 23 primary, he is not stopping there, now stoking incorrect speculation she cannot be president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born and helping the spread of old rumors about her marriage, first raised during her 2010 South Carolina gubernatorial campaign.
Trump resurrected the birther conspiracies this week in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, after spending last weekend undercutting Haley in Clinton, Mason City, Newton, and Sioux Center for being weak on immigration, while describing her as a “globalist” who “likes the globe” — in addition to mocking “Barack Hussein Obama.”
Then in Newton, he escalated his criticism, specifically mentioning Haley’s marriage in an off-Teleprompter moment during a two-hour speech as he predicted both she and DeSantis would also experience political indictments if they are elected president, as he claims he currently is.
“The same thing that happened to me is going to happen to them,” Trump said. “She’s going to get indicted because they’ll say she was having an affair or something, you know. “It doesn’t mean it’s lying,” he added.
The comment from Trump stems from unsubstantiated claims that Haley has cheated on her husband. Such claims have cropped up throughout Haley’s political career. Back when Haley was running in the 2010 gubernatorial election, accusations she had an affair with a political blogger, and later lobbyist Larry Marchant, plagued her campaign. Years later, a rumor that Haley had an affair with the former president himself also entered the public sphere. The accusations have been roundly rejected by Haley and have not been proven.
The Trump campaign has additionally underscored that Haley wrote in her 2012 book Can’t is Not an Option that she encouraged her husband to change his name from “William” to “Michael.”
Although Trump makes fun of the media for taking his statements seriously, adamant he is simply having “fun” during his public appearances, possible Iowa Republican caucusgoers have echoed his complaints of Haley to the Washington Examiner.
Meanwhile, DeSantis has similarly become more personal as he and Haley contend for second place in Iowa and New Hampshire, though within more traditional bounds.
“You don’t win as a Republican when you don’t stand for anything. You got to have core convictions, you got to go in bold colors, not failed tests,” he said Tuesday during a pre-debate press conference in West Des Moines. “Her inspiration to run for office was Hillary Clinton. She’s now going around saying that that’s a lie. She wrote that in her book.”
Republican primaries have a history of becoming dirty, such as disputed accusations that the younger Bush’s campaign was connected with a 2000 push poll before the South Carolina contest during which voters were asked, “Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain… if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”
The poll implied that John and Cindy McCain’s daughter, Bridget, whom they adopted from an orphanage in Bangladesh, was actually the result of an affair.
The Trump campaign did not respond to an inquiry from the Washington Examiner concerning his social media posts and remarks, nor did Haley or DeSantis’s camp when asked for their reaction to the former president’s comments.
After a Haley event in Waukee on Tuesday, the same day Trump’s attorneys argued before a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. that the former president has presidential immunity in special counsel Jack Smith‘s election interference case, Trump supporter John Engelhardt, who dismissed the one-time commander in chief’s legal problems as not “legitimate,” said he was still “open” to other candidates before next week’s caucuses.
“There are so many personality traits that Donald Trump has that I don’t think anyone loves and it’s because of that that I’m not all in,” the Waukee handyman, 60, told the Washington Examiner. “I just like him because he’s not afraid to hit back and I don’t think Nikki Haley would hit back.”
“She comes off to me as a little too much of the typical politician,” he continued. “‘I’m going to say these things when I’m standing here in Iowa,’ but when it comes time, when the rubber meets the road, will she really do it? I’m not convinced.”
Pete Vanderiet, who remains undecided but considered Haley to share his values related to fiscal responsibility and “says the right things” to “calm” us “all down” for his daughter’s sake. For the Clive veteran, 64, no president will be the “downfall of our country,” but he defended the rule of law, disagreeing that “anybody should be above it.”
“There seems to be that there’s an element of our country that wants or is thriving on the chaos and that’s worrisome,” he said. “I would guess that the majority of conservatives are put off by it. It’s his supporters are the loud ones, and I’m hopeful that maybe there aren’t as many of them as the polls seem to indicate. I hope.”