Nikki Haley lashes Trump a week out from Iowa primaries

After a difficult few weeks marked by gaffes Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley lashes out at Donald Trump one week out the first official vote of the 2024 presidential campaign.

US Republican presidential candidate and former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley at a town hall meeting hosted by Fox News in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday. Picture: AFP

US presidential hopeful Nikki Haley attacked Donald Trump’s economic record and branded Ron DeSantis a liar in a town hall, as the only woman seeking to ­derail the former president’s White House bid sought to win over Iowa ­Republican voters ahead of the state’s influential “first in nation” caucuses next week.

With seven days to go until the first official vote in the 2024 presidential cycle, the three main ­Republican challengers to the former president have been earnestly crisscrossing Iowa in the hope of pulling off what practically every polls suggests would be an electoral miracle: defeating Mr Trump, who has maintains a huge polling lead over his rivals for the GOP nomination.

“Everybody talks about how great the economy was under Trump, but at what cost? He put us $US8 trillion in debt in just four years; our kids will never forgive us,” Ms Haley told a Fox News-­organised town hall in Des Moines on (Tuesday AEDT).

“As much as I would love to say Biden did this to us, Republicans did too,” the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the UN added, referring to the Trump administration’s stimulus spending during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ms Haley’s remarks came after a difficult few weeks for the 51-year-old, having botched an ­answer to a question about the Civil War by not mentioning slavery, earning a slap down from

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis during a campaign event in Grimes, Iowa, on Sunday. Picture: Getty Images

President Joe Biden in a speech on the campaign trail earlier in the day.

“Let me be clear for those who don’t seem to know: slavery was the cause of the Civil War,” Mr Biden said in South Carolina on Monday.

Ms Haley replied to the President: “I don’t need someone who palled around with segregationists in the ’70s and has said racist comments all the way through his ­career, lecturing me or anyone in South Carolina, about what it means to have racism, slavery or anything related to the Civil War”.

Ms Haley recently told voters in New Hampshire, which hosts the second Republican primary vote next week, that they would ­“correct” Iowa’s vote, providing Mr DeSantis’s campaign with ­ammunition in its final Iowa television advertisement.

“Haley disparages the caucuses and insults you,” the narrator in the DeSantis ad says.

Mr DeSantis began as the challenger most likely to supplant Mr Trump in the race for the Republican nomination, only to be edged out by Ms Haley, who in recent weeks has moved slightly ahead of the popular Florida Governor.

A Morning Consult poll released on Monday gave Mr Trump 58 per cent support, to Ms Haley’s 15 per cent, Mr DeSantis 14 per cent, and billionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy 10 per cent.

“Nikki Haley has been in the pocket of the open borders establishment donors her entire ­career,” Mr Trump said at recent campaign event, reflecting part of a pattern of stepping up attacks on his former ambassadorial pick as her polling improved.

But Ms Haley hit back on Monday: “Just because President Trump says something doesn’t make it true,” she told the town hall audience, defending her stand on immigration, which has ­become almost the dominant issue in the campaign against a backdrop of millions of illegal ­migrants coming across the southern border from Mexico.

Severe winter weather was ­expected to affect voter turnout next Monday, including a polar vortex and potential blizzard conditions.

Mr Trump will again miss the official Republican candidate ­debate to be held in Des Moines at 6pm on Wednesday (11am Thursday AEDT), preferring instead to appear on Fox News on the same night.