GOP Presidential candidate Nikki Haley has run a campaign largely devoid of challenging the Republican frontrunner (and her former boss) Donald Trump. But as New Hampshire’s Republican primary looms, Haley is turning up the focus on a few of Trump’s less popular moves, even by MAGA standards.
Attacking his character, Haley says Trump’s rants about her only prove that he’s vulnerable and that Trump’s “temper tantrums” — as she calls them — are the result of an underlying fear that he might lose.
But it’s on economic substance, not character, that Haley is introducing fresh campaign material that packs a punch that voters might feel (they already know Trump is prone to pique).
In her CNN town hall and all over New Hampshire, Haley is telling people — as the House, Senate and White House struggle yet again to work out budget deals — that Donald Trump “added $8 trillion” to the deficit.
Haley: Trump put us $8 trillion in debt over four years and we’re digging out of it, unable to figure out how we’re gonna pay that now pic.twitter.com/UbvfpZLEZ9
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 19, 2024
For hardliners like the fiscally ultra-conservative Representatives in the House Freedom Caucus — who believe the U.S. is careening on a disastrous, independence-threatening spending spree — the addition of $8 trillion to the debt during Trump’s four years in office is anathema. No matter how much they may like Trump’s social policy stances on DEI, wokeness, abortion and more, the spending is real and many in the GOP, like Haley, feel it’s unsustainable.
Where did the money go? President Biden’s re-election campaign offers one avenue (among many) down which some of that money traveled — and that avenue ends in the pockets of the elite millionaire and billionaire classes.
Trump at a private fundraiser last month: You’re all people that have a lot of money. You’re rich as hell. We’re gonna give you tax cuts pic.twitter.com/KEFhpqVXYk https://t.co/xx4A9xERBF
— DNC War Room (@DNCWarRoom) January 19, 2024
For all Trump’s populist tendencies, his presidency presented an enormous gift to the wealthy in the form of tax reductions. There is not a lot Biden and Haley agree on, but the portrayal of Donald Trump as a big spender whose largesse has historically favored the very rich is one thing both politicians are eager to promote.
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