At a campaign event in New Hampshire the weekend before the primary, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley questioned Donald Trump’s mental fitness for office after he confused her with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, CNN reported.
While speaking to New Hampshire supporters on January 19, Trump was railing against the House’s January 6 select committee investigation and accusing the panel of destroying and deleting all the evidence it compiled during its two-year investigation.
Trump claimed that many questions remained unanswered about what occurred before the riot, including questions about Nikki Haley, whom he claimed was “in charge of security” at the Capitol.
He didn’t make the gaffe only once. Trump repeatedly used Nikki Haley’s name while speaking about Nancy Pelosi’s failure to provide adequate security on January 6.
Video footage of the gaffe went viral on social media. Unsurprisingly, the Biden campaign seized on it. Even President Biden has highlighted Trump’s confusion in several campaign speeches.
During a campaign stop in Keene, New Hampshire on January 20, Haley said Donald Trump wanted to know why she didn’t take security precautions during the January 6 riot and noted that she wasn’t in the Capitol that day nor was she serving in the House at the time.
Haley said people were saying that Trump had confused her with Nancy Pelosi and suggested that the country couldn’t afford to have as president someone that “we question whether they’re mentally fit” to handle the “pressures of the presidency.”
At a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire later that evening, Trump attempted a little damage control over his obvious gaffe, telling his supporters that his doctor gave him a cognitive test “a few months ago” and he “aced it.”
He said if he did “go back,” he would “be able to tell you.”
Trump claimed that his mind was stronger today “than it was 25 years ago.”
Trump campaign advisor Chris LaCivita dismissed Haley’s response to the gaffe, tweeting, “Nancy ….Nikki ….its [sic] a distinction without a difference.”
