Nikki Haley continued her criticism of Donald Trump and JD Vance, blaming the GOP presidential ticket’s rhetoric about women for Kamala Harris’ double-digit polling lead among female voters.
“Donald Trump and JD Vance need to change the way they speak about women,” the former United Nations ambassador said on Monday. “You don’t need to call Kamala dumb. She didn’t get this far just by accident.”
During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Haley said that the former president and his running mate ought to “just focus on the policies,” rather than discussing the Vice President’s intelligence or appearance, among other things.
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“When you call even Democrat women dumb, Republican women get their backs up too,” the former Republican presidential candidate added.
Her remarks come less than a day after she chided Vance for his “not helpful” comments about childless women in an interview with CBS’ Margaret Brennan.
“It is not helpful to talk about whether women have children or whether they don’t,” Haley said on Face the Nation Sunday. “I have said that and I will continue to say to Republicans, stop it, that’s not helpful.”
Vance, who infamously referred to Kamala Harris and other women without children as a “bunch of childless cat ladies miserable at their own lives,” recently received backlash after a 2021 clip of him saying professional women choose “a path to misery” by prioritizing their careers over having children resurfaced.
Much like his running mate, the former president’s jabs at Harris have also landed him in hot water. Trump, who allegedly called his political opponent a “b---h” multiple times in private, recently told rally goers he is “much better looking” than the vice president.
Throughout his campaign, the former president has also described Harris as “stupid,” and “crazy” and circulated racist and false claims about the Democratic presidential nominee.
According to Trump, he is entitled to personally attacking Harris because “I don’t have a lot of respect for her. I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence.”
Haley issued her first warning to the Republican presidential candidate when she addressed Trump’s name-calling in August. “I want this campaign to win,” she told Fox News. “But the campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes. It’s not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It’s not going to win talking about whether she is dumb.”
Despite her public criticism of Trump and Vance, Haley “strongly endorsed” the GOP nominee in July and described herself as “on standby” for the former president, having not yet been tapped to help with his campaign.
