It was only a matter of time before former President Donald Trump went birther on Nikki Haley.
After all, the former South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador is a pioneering candidate, the daughter of immigrants from India, and she’s rising in the polls. It’s not only concern about his electoral prospects that’s driving him; Trump’s massive yet fragile ego also feels threatened. So he reached for the most reflexive slur he could find via the far-right news site Gateway Pundit, reposting on Truth Social the false claim that Haley is not constitutionally eligible to be president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born in South Carolina.
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The claim about Haley is a lazy and xenophobic rehash of the so-called birther attacks Trump baselessly directed at President Barack Obama’s supposed ineligibility for office.
This isn’t a dog whistle; it’s a bullhorn. In 2016, Trump also raised a phony birther issue about Ted Cruz. In 2020, he questioned whether Kamala Harris was eligible to run for office on similar but equally false grounds. See a pattern?
Now he’s trafficking in the same desperate play against Haley. No one who’s ever described themselves as “Iowa nice” ought to fall for this desperate cut-and-paste bigotry.
But Trump’s mind hits rewind whenever he feels backed into a corner, repeating the same old attacks at higher volume.
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