GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Wednesday aimed at former President Donald Trump, calling him "more diminished than he was" and saying that he's changed since she served in his administration as the ambassador to the United Nations.
"During the time that I was in the administration, I called him out every single time," the former South Carolina governor said on NBC's "Today," telling host Craig Melvin that she had conversations about him on "multiple things," including his comments on women.
"The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016," Haley said. "He is unhinged; he is more diminished than he was, just like Joe Biden's more diminished than what he was."
And Trump, she added, "is saying things that don't make sense."
Haley's comments about Trump are nothing new, as she's called him "unhinged" while saying he's not qualified to serve as president, but Wednesday, she warned that the upcoming general election could pit two candidates whose age and mental capacities leave them unable to handles the duties of the White House.
"You've got Joe Biden, where the special counsel said he was diminished, and he's not the Joe Biden he was two years ago," she said. "You've got a Donald Trump who's unhinged, and he's more unhinged than he ever was. And why are we settling for that when the country is in disarray and the world is on fire?"
Haley added that "we don't want these two old men running" but instead, someone who will work "with no drama, no vendettas."
She also pointed to Trump's questioning of the whereabouts of her husband Michael, a major in the South Carolina Army National Guard who is out of the country on deployment in Africa.
"You know, to mock my husband, Michael and I can handle that," she said. "But you mock one member of the military, you mock all members of the military."
Meanwhile, Haley acknowledged that she voted for Trump twice and she was proud to serve in his administration.
"But you can go back and look at my book I cite multiple times, and he knows it, when I called him out for things that he was doing that were wrong," she said. "Since I got out of the administration, I have called him out multiple times, which is why he's upset because he thinks I'm disloyal. I'm not loyal to anyone. I don't do that. What I do is I call it out. If you're right, you're right. If you're wrong, you're wrong. I'm going to call it out every time."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.