Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the PAC backing Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump took aim at Nikki Haley for her botched Civil War response and found something both sides agree on — that she's not "ready for prime time."
DeSantis and the MAGA PAC used the same phrase describing Haley — it's not clear who said it first — after she failed to cite slavery as a cause of the Civil War during a town-hall event in New Hampshire on Wednesday.
In a statement issued Thursday, Trump's MAGA PAC said in a statement: "Nikki Haley is struggling. Haley was unable to say that the Civil War was about slavery and thinks Dubuque is in New Hampshire. In fact, Haley is now claiming that the Civil War question was a 'plant.' The issue is her response, not the question. Haley is clearly not ready for prime time."
DeSantis roasted Haley while talking with reporters on Thursday, accusing the former South Carolina governor of "incomprehensible word salad" in trying to clarify her position.
"I just think that this shows this is not a candidate that's ready for prime time," DeSantis said. "She's gotten a pretty free ride from a lot of the corporate press. The minute that she faces any type of scrutiny, she tends to cave, and I think that that's what you saw yesterday. Not that difficult to identify and acknowledge the role slavery played in the Civil War. And yet that seemed to be something that was really difficult."
Haley on Thursday tried to clean up her remarks, saying the Civil War "of course" was "about slavery," and insisted her comments the previous night came after a question by one of the "Democrat plants."
Regardless, at the town hall in Berlin, New Hampshire, on Wednesday night, Haley never used the word "slavery" when responding to a question from a voter, instead saying, in part, "the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run — the freedoms and what people could and couldn't do."
"Yikes," read a post from DeSantis' War Room account late Wednesday night.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who's backing Trump for the GOP nomination, also had some fun at Haley's expense on Thursday.
"1. Psst Nikki... the answer is slavery PERIOD. 2. This really doesn't matter because Trump is going to be the nominee. Trump 2024!" Donalds posted to X.
The New Hampshire primary is Jan. 23.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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