Who is Nikki Haley, Republican who is challenging Trump's candidacy for US President?
The birth name of Nikki Haley, Donald Trump's only rival in the Republican Party's internal battle over defining its candidate for president of the United States, has been attacked by Trump.
The former US president and Republican presidential candidate mocked Haley's birth name. Nimarata Nikki Randhawa revives her focus strategy on race and ethnicity to attack rivals which was inaugurated by former President Barack Obama (more on that below).
1 of 1 Trump and Nikki Haley during the New Hampshire primary Photo: Portal Trump and Nikki Haley during the New Hampshire primary Photo: Portal
In a post on his social media page Truth Social last week, Trump referred to Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, as “Nimbra” three times. Trump, who has a son and grandson and has been married twice to immigrants, said his rival “doesn't have the capacity” to run the country.
Trump's contribution was a Escalation of recent attacks in which he mentioned Haley's first name. The former president incorrectly stated that she was not eligible for the presidency because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born in 1972.
Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and former US ambassador to the United Nations (UN). was born in Bamberg, South Carolina. She has always been known by her middle name “Nikki” (which means “small” in Punjabi, a language spoken in parts of India) and adopted the surname “Haley” when she married in 1996.
The attacks echo the rhetoric”Birther Trump against former US President Barack Obama. Trump has for years pushed the conspiracy theory that the country's first black president was born in Kenya and was not a naturalborn U.S. citizen, as required by the Constitution.
This rhetoric gained Trump notoriety before taking office among Republicans' culturally conservative base, which tends to support antiimmigrant policies.
Haley criticized Trump's recent attacks, saying they were evidence that the former president felt threatened by the former ambassador.
“I’ll let the people decide what he means by these attacks.”Haley told reporters in New Hampshire on Friday when asked about Trump's false claims that her race disqualified her from holding office.
Trump card also used Ron DeSantis' name to mock the candidate. But the nicknames he invented for his former rival — “Ron DeSanctimonious” or “Ron DeSanctus” — have nothing to do with race or ethnicity. DeSantis is white.
Trump's focus is on Haley's name is reminiscent of similar attacks on rightwing extremist online forums from the United States. For months, these groups have been flooded with racist comments about Nikki Haley and false accusations.
Haley's name and family background have also been a topic of conversation on the left. Some widely shared social media posts called the former ambassador a hypocrite for claiming that America has “never been a racist country,” even though she herself has reportedly been a victim of racism.
Pastor Darrell Scott, a Black man who led a diversity coalition for Trump's previous campaigns, defended the former president's recent attacks as “Typical arrows of the election season”.
“You have to analyze politics as politics. It's not personalScott said. “He has no intention of belittling you or humiliating you in any way.” He does this to win votes“Scott explained.
Republican Tara Setmayer, a member of the party's antiTrump wing, said she found the attacks reprehensible.
“This is the ramblings of a pathetically insecure man who has demonstrated his racism and prejudice throughout his career,” Setmayer said. “Why would anyone expect things to be any different now when an entire political party has allowed this level of morally questionable behavior?”
Strategy with Obama and Kamala Harris
Trump calls immigrants thieves in his speech after winning the first election
Trump has one long history of weaponizing the race, ethnicity, and origins of immigrants.
For years he referred to Barack Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama.”with the former president's middle name highlighted.
Obama is the son of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father. He was born in Hawaii, although Trump claimed for years that Obama made up the story and provided a birth certificate to back it up.
Trump eventually admitted his claims were false, but then said during the 2016 general election that he only did it to “advance the campaign.”
When former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke encouraged Republican primary voters to support Trump in 2016, Trump responded in an interview with CNN that he knew “nothing about David Duke.” I don't know anything about white supremacists“.
The former president is also among the many Republicans who mispronounce Vice President Kamala Harris' name.
Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, is the first woman to become vice president and third person of color to serve as president or vice presidentafter Obama and Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's vice president.
Donald Trump also spoke about it during his term as president “Shithole countries” when it comes to nations in Africa and questioned why the United States would accept immigrants from Haiti instead of people from countries like Norway.