RYE, New Hampshire — After months of steadfastly avoiding any direct attacks on former President Donald Trump, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley took the gloves off on Tuesday night.
Haley hit back at Trump over his political operation’s first negative ad against her this cycle, with New Hampshire voters recently bombarded with an ad calling her “High Tax Haley.”
The ad, which focuses on a non-existent gas tax in South Carolina during her time as governor, marks the first major dustup between the two candidates, as The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday.
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“I see the commercials that you see, and I’ve noticed that President Trump is giving me some attention,” Haley said before kicking off a Q&A with voters at Wentworth by the Sea, a swanky ocean shore country club. “And I appreciate that, because that means he sees what we’re seeing, but in his commercials and in his temper tantrums, every single thing that he’s said has been a lie.”
Haley not only reiterated she never raised the gas tax in her state, but hit Trump for proposing a 25-cent-per-gallon hike in the federal gas tax back in 2018.
“So if he’s gonna lie about me,” Haley said, “I’m gonna tell you the truth about him.”
Just the declaration of a shot across the bow at Trump earned Haley one of her strongest applause lines of the night.
Haley also hit Trump on the economy, something she’s only done in passing previously when referring to the national debt.
“It was great,” Haley said of the economy under Trump, “but at what cost?”
Haley said “our kids will never forgive us” for Trump putting the nation in more than $8 trillion of debt.
“You don’t go and pretend to have a good economy by putting us in debt,” Haley said, before moving on to take questions from voters.
