Nikki Haley is mocking GOP presidential foe Donald Trump’s lack of military experience after he took a “disgusting” jab at her deployed husband’s absence while she’s on the campaign trail.
“It’s disgusting!” said Haley, 52, on “Fox News” on Monday, referring to Trump, 78, repeatedly asking the crowd at a rally in South Carolina over the weekend about the whereabouts of her husband, Maj. Michael Haley.
Trump told the crowd, “[Haley] comes over to see me at Mar-A-Lago. ‘Sir, I will never run against you.’
“She brought her husband. Where’s her husband? Oh, he’s away. He’s away. What happened to her husband?” he said.
Michael Haley has been absent from his wife’s campaign efforts since June, when he was deployed to Africa with the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Bridge as part of the South Carolina National Guard.
“You mock one veteran, you’re mocking all veterans,” Haley told Fox host Dana Perino, echoing comments she made right after Trump’s remarks.
“But this is a pattern, Dana. He’s done this over and over again. Whether he went and called military members suckers, whether he was at Arlington Cemetery saying what was in it for them, why would they do this? The problem with Trump is he’s never been anywhere near a uniform,” she said.
“He apparently had some sort of foot reason that he says he couldn’t do that,” Haley said, referring to the infamous report that then-22-year-old Trump avoided being drafted into the Vietnam War by claiming he had bone spurs.
“But the reality is, the closest [Trump’s] come to harm’s way is a golf ball hitting on a golf cart,” Haley said.
The former South Carolina governor — who is a distant second to Trump in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination — has said she was “proud” of her husband’s service and told supporters at a previous campaign stop in Gilbert, SC, that “if you mock the service of a combat veteran, you don’t deserve a driver’s license, let alone being president of the United States.”
Michael Haley also appeared to shoot back at Trump on Feb. 10 by tagging him in a pointed tweet that read “The difference between humans and animals? Animals would never allow the dumbest ones to lead the pack.”
Even Democratic President Biden took to social media to defend Haley’s husband against Trump’s disparagement.
“The answer is that Major Haley is abroad, serving his country right now,” Biden posted on X on Sunday. “We know he thinks our troops are ‘suckers,’ but this guy wouldn’t know service to his country if it slapped him in the face.”
The spat between Trump and Haley is merely the latest as the former president continues to rail against his ex-UN ambassador’s refusal to drop out of the race.
The South Carolina primary is set for Feb. 24.
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