An exasperated Nikki Haley urged former President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans to abandon their attacks against Kamala Harris and instead focus on her policy positions, saying Americans are too smart to buy into “things that don’t matter.”
“I want this campaign to win, but the campaign is not gonna win talking about crowd sizes,” she told Fox News Bret Baier on Tuesday night. “It’s not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It’s not going to win talking about whether she’s dumb.”
Haley, who served as the ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, has had a rocky relationship with the former president since she ended her own challenge for the Republican nomination. But she endorsed him last month at the Republican National Convention, saying that while she hadn’t agreed with him “100 percent of the time,” he knew what was best for the nation.
Her comments come as the Trump campaign is increasingly frustrated with the rise of Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. The pair have surged in the polls amid a wave of excitement, overcrowding arenas and bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in donations.
Haley admitted that Harris was flying high with undecided voters attracted to her vision, something Trump has so far failed to achieve.
“What they like about Kamala is that she’s being hopeful, she’s talking about freedom, she’s talking about a way forward,” she said. “They don’t want a former president talking about the past.”
Trump has claimed, falsely, that some crowds at Harris’ rallies were generated by artificial intelligence, calling her a “cheater.” He also sparked fierce condemnation after alluding to a room of Black journalists that the vice president “happened to turn Black” to score political points.
Haley said Tuesday those lines of attack would only alienate the voters Republicans needed to beat Biden in November.
“We need him to win, but you’ve gotta go out and do the work, and the one thing that Republicans have to stop: Quit whining about her,” she said. “More than anything, this is not an election for just the MAGA vote. Trust me, Donald Trump has that.”
“Republicans need to be fighting for suburban women, for college educated, for independents, for moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats.”
She added that the Republican Party has long known that Harris would rise to replace Biden if the president ended his own reelection campaign and it was time to stop “complaining” that she was the Democratic nominee.
“Republicans should not be surprised that we are now running against Kamala Harris,” Haley said. “It was her all the time.”