'Loyalty matters': Internet divided as Trump attacks Nikki Haley saying she stabbed GOP in the back over border wall

PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE: Following his victory speech in Iowa, in which Donald Trump referred to Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as "very smart, very capable people," is now looking to deliver a knockout blow to his GOP presidential rival in the Republican primary in New Hampshire.

Trump's campaign has considered Haley as a significant threat in New Hampshire for weeks, and the 77-year-old GOP frontrunner made it apparent over the following days since his Iowa caucus win with a series of attacks on social media and during caucus rallies in the Granite State.

The former President went after Haley in a post on his beleaguered social media platform, Truth Social, using her first name, Nimarata (albeit he misspelled it as Nimrada).

Notably, Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, was given the name Nimarata Nikki Randhawa and later adopted her husband's surname.

Trump also recently shared a post that erroneously claimed Haley wasn't eligible to run for president because her parents were not US citizens at the time she was born.

Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, and is a United States citizen, per a report by CNN.

On Wednesday morning, Trump attacked Haley again, putting out an edited photo of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Nikki Haley's face superimposed on it.

The allegations mimic Trump’s smears against former US President Barack Obama.

Trump was a major proponent of the theory that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore ineligible to be president.

Trump also used to frequently highlight Obama's middle name, Hussein, during his campaign rallies back in 2015, and on Wednesday he mentioned him again while going after the former South Carolina Governor.

What did Donald Trump say at his caucus rally?

A triumph in 23rd January's New Hampshire primary, eight days after his overwhelming victory in the Iowa caucuses, would hasten Trump's path to a third consecutive GOP presidential nomination.

His campaign intends to wrap up the primary early, with landslide victories in early-voting states, and then effectively clinch the GOP presidential nomination by mid-March.

However, Trump faces a more difficult test in the Granite State, where polls suggest Haley, his former US ambassador to the United Nations, is within single digits of him and challenging his lead.

A recent CNN poll of the New Hampshire Republican primary found Haley cutting Trump's lead to single digits, earning 55 per cent of self-described moderate voters and 60 per cent of those who classified as conservative.

In a caucus rally in Portsmouth, Trump criticized Haley for not prioritizing the border issue in her presidential bid and claimed she opposed his policies surrounding the border wall and travel ban when she was the United Nations ambassador during his administration.

Trump said, “Nikki Haley will never secure the border. She doesn't believe in these secure borders. She can't believe in them. She actually opposed my border wall, and she was out of, you know, all of a sudden she's opposing the wall. I say, what the hell is going on?”

The former President likened Haley to Democrats and said, “She's actually opposing it because she's basically, as you know, when you have all of those Democrats coming in to vote, I don't know that she's a Democrat, but she's very close. She's far too close for you.”

“She condemned the things we were doing with the wall, and yet we had the greatest border, the safest border we've ever had. That included, by the way, on human trafficking. We had the lowest numbers in 38 years,” Trump continued.

“One of the most horrible things we have going on in the world is human trafficking,” he noted, adding.

“You think it's an ancient thing. It's not. And what made it so profitable and so big now is the computer, the Internet. The Internet made all of that. And it's mostly in women. They trafficking women. And it's a terrible, terrible scourge. And she didn't fight it like she's supposed to fight it,” he said. 

Trump accused Haley of opposing his policies and claimed she joined hands with former President Barack Obama.

“2016, she stabbed the Republican Party in the back by siding with Barack Hussein Obama against the Trump travel ban. The Trump travel ban said, we don't want people in our country from certain countries that like blowing up their shopping centers and killing people every week. We don't want them,” he stated.

Among the many indications that Trump's team sees Haley as a threat in New Hampshire are his attacks on social media and the campaign's increased spending in the state.

His campaign has added numerous events to what was previously supposed to be a light schedule in the state ahead of the Tuesday, January 23, vote.

The former president will now hold events in New Hampshire almost every day until the voting process begins.

Internet dumbfounded as Trump ramps up attacks on Nikki Haley

People on X expressed their reactions to Trump’s scathing verbal assaults on the former South Carolina Governor in his bid to rally his ever-ardent supporters to come out of their homes and cast a vote for him come next week.

One X user remarked, "I think she’s playing both sides"

Another user wrote, "And yet, despite today's calls that Nikki Haley stabbed Trump and the Republicans in the back in 2016, somehow she wound up as Ambassador to UN in the Trump admin. If it sounds off, it's because it is off. Loyalty matters, I keep hearing."

Another user said, "Nikki Haley loves foreign wars yet hates defending the US border. She’s a Democrat."

One user stated, "Trump didn’t build the wall anyways."

Another X user claimed, "But he hired her."

Finally, this user tweeted, "Haley's border stance is softer than a campaign promise on election night. If walls could talk, they'd tell Nikki Haley that security isn't just a campaign slogan. When it comes to border security Haley's compass points everywhere but south."

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.