Nikki Haley digs into Trump’s age and calls for intelligence testing for politicians over 75 at campaign start

  • Nikki Haley, 51, became the second person to announce her candidacy for the presidency.
  • She criticized the ages of Trump and Biden without mentioning them by name.
  • Among her political promises were term limits and intelligence tests for politicians over the age of 75.

Former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley only mentioned former President Donald Trump once during Wednesday’s presidential campaign kickoff, but the message about her rival and former boss was clear.

Haley, 51, leaned heavily on a storytelling focused on a new generation of leaders when she launched her campaign in Charleston, South Carolina. Thus, Haley became the first person to run in the 2024 presidential race since Trump announced, and the first Republican woman of color to apply for the presidency of the United States.

“We are ready,” she said, “ready to abandon outdated ideas and faded names of the past. And we are more than ready for the next generation to lead us into the future.”

Haley promised that if elected, she would introduce mandatory intelligence tests for politicians over 75, a topic that came up frequently in Congress when Trump was in office. She also called for term limits in Congress, promising that “a permanent politician will finally step down.”

“America is not yet past its prime,” Hailey said. “It’s just that our politicians got past them.”

Donald Trump will be 78 if elected in 2024. Joe Biden will be 82 years old.

White House residents weren’t the only older leaders in Washington. The 2022 Insider series The Reds, Whites & Greys explores the costs, benefits and perils of living in a democracy led by the elderly, where the issues that matter most to youth and the nation’s future are technology, civil rights, energy, the environment. – mostly in the hands of old politicians.

Inclining to portray Trump as a leader of the past, Haley noted that Republicans have failed to garner the support of a majority of voters during multiple election cycles. Trump won the 2016 election by counting his Electoral College, but lost the popular vote by about 3 million people.

“If you are tired of losing, trust the new generation,” she said.

Haley’s only mention of Trump was that he used her as a UN ambassador. However, she linked this part of her resume to being the new face in Washington.

“People said I had no experience,” she said. “Then I went to work.”

Trump and Haley in the Oval Office of the White House on October 9, 2018. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Trump responded to Haley shortly after the announcement

Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who introduced Haley ahead of her speech, was more candid about Trump. He said the former president was once what the US needed to remind the Republican Party “how to boldly stand up for our beliefs and commitment to the freedoms we enjoy today.”

“I want to thank Donald Trump for his service and his place as one of the greatest leaders of all time during the Trump years,” he said, but Haley had “the very qualities that are desperately needed in today’s America.”

However, Haley reiterated many of the themes that defined Trump’s GOP movement, including a focus on illegal immigration and crime and accusing Democrats of embracing socialism. She painted a bleak picture of a Biden-led America mired in high prices and fears of threats from Russia and China.

“America is on a path of doubt, division and self-destruction, a path of waning patriotism and weakening power,” she said.

Hailey, the daughter of immigrants, has opened up about being the only Indian family in her small South Carolina town, admitting “it wasn’t always easy” and describing herself as “a swarthy girl who grew up in a black and white world.” However, in her speech, she insisted that “America is not a racist country” given that she was the first woman of color to become governor of South Carolina.

Although she also claimed that her candidacy was “unrelated to identity politics”, she embraced her gender, stating that “may the best woman win” and described herself as “tough as a nail”. She was dressed in white, the color of the suffragette movement, which gave women the right to vote.

The Trump campaign quickly hit back at Haley on Wednesday, sending reporters an email titled “The Real Nikki Haley.” Hayley pointed this out earlier. promised she did not race against Trump, then changed her mind and linked to a 2012 New York Times article in which Haley said that Hillary Clinton, a Democrat who lost to Trump in 2016, inspired her to enter politics.

In a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt this month, Trump called Haley “overly ambitious,” a term he didn’t use for some of the male Republicans potentially in the race, even if some of them were younger than Haley.

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