CONCORD, New Hampshire — Former President Donald Trump dealt a blow to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley when Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) endorsed him on Friday during a rally.
Scott, a fellow South Carolinian whom Haley once appointed to the Senate in 2012 to replace former Sen. Jim DeMint, repeatedly claimed the nation needed Trump as the next president in his jubilant speech.
“Is this Donald Trump country?” Scott asked the crowd when Trump introduced him.
“Yeah,” the crowd roared back.
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But the South Carolina senator didn’t stop there.
“We need a president who will unite our country. We need Donald Trump,” he continued to crowd approval.
Scott claimed Trump was needed to close the southern border, lower taxes, and restore law and order. “We need a president like Donald Trump president who understands the American people are sick and tired of being sick,” Scott said.
The crowd repeatedly yelled back “We need Donald Trump!” in a call-and-response with Scott.
“And that’s why I came to the very warm state of New Hampshire to endorse the next President of these United States,” Scott concluded his remarks.
Trump urged supporters to turn out for his campaign during Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary as he aimed harsh attacks against Haley and Gov. Chris Sununu (R-FL).
The former president claimed Haley was not “tough enough” to handle the presidency and knocked Sununu for declining to run for president.
“Honestly, he’s terrible,” Trump said about the New Hampshire governor. “You know he ran for president, you know that? He didn’t announce it because he didn’t have the guts. … His numbers were in the vicinity of Asa Hutchinson.” (Hutchinson dropped out of the race this week after performing poorly in Iowa.)
Sununu’s endorsement of Haley for president has particularly earned the ire of Trump. The governor barnstormed with Haley in New Hampshire in the final days before the primary as they counteract the several rallies Trump is holding in the Granite State.
Trump, though, appears nonplussed about Haley and Sununu.
“He thinks he’s hot stuff. He’s nothing,” Trump quipped.
“Now he’s backing a woman I know very well. A woman that is not capable of doing this job,” Trump said of Haley. “She’s not tough enough. She’s not smart enough.”
After a triumphant finish in the Iowa caucuses, Trump hopes to knock out Haley on Tuesday with another decisive win and the polls show he has a good chance.
According to a RealClearPolitics New Hampshire poll average, Trump is leading Haley by 13 percentage points.
Trump’s fans have endured tough conditions to express their enthusiasm for the former president. Supporters stood in freezing weather for over three hours to hear Trump speak Friday night.
Victoria Donaldson, a 54-year-old healthcare worker, drove more than three hours with a friend from Maine to hear Trump speak in Concord.
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“Well, we always enjoy watching President Trump. We saw him in Maine in 2020. So we wanted to come down and see him again,” Donaldson told the Washington Examiner.
She was part of the crowded room of people who spent their Friday night listening to Trump speak. And they could very likely propel him as the GOP’s next standard bearer.