Donald Trump blamed former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley for security during the January 6, 2021 attack on Friday as he seemingly confused former House speaker Nancy Pelosi with his Republican rival.
The former president – while touting the amount of supporters at the Concord, New Hampshire rally – claimed the former South Carolina governor gets crowds of “like nine people” in the state before bringing up the insurrection.
“By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley. You know they – do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it,” Trump claimed.
“Because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security — we offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”
Trump has previously pointed his finger at Pelosi for security breakdowns when the riot took place, claiming that the former House speaker turned down his offer to activate the National Guard as his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
The House speaker isn’t in charge of security at the Capitol and doesn’t direct the National Guard.
Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi, told The Associated Press last year that the former House speaker – who he noted was a “target of an assassination attempt” that day – “was no more in charge of Capitol security than Mitch McConnell was.”
“This is a clear attempt to whitewash what happened on January 6th and divert blame,” Hammill wrote of the claim.
A number of critics on X mocked Trump for his remarks, questioning whether he “can identify a fucking whale.”