Trump issues ominous threats of ‘investigations’ against Haley if she stays in GOP race
Donald Trump threatened that Nikki Haley would be “under investigation” if she beat him in the Republican primary after defeating her in New Hampshire.
The former president appeared to threaten his former UN ambassador after she vowed to continue her fight for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
“Just a little note to Nikki, she is not going to win, but if she did she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes. I could tell you five reasons why already, not big reasons, little stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about, but she will be under investigation in minutes,” said Mr Trump to a crowd of his supporters on Tuesday night.
“And so would Ron have been, but he decided to get out.”
Mr Trump, who is the first and only former or sitting president to be criminally charged, faces a total of 91 felony counts across his four criminal indictments by state and federal prosecutors. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
He blasted Ms Haley as an “imposter” who’s still “hanging around” despite coming third in the Iowa primary last week and failing to secure a win in New Hampshire.
“We beat her so badly,” he told his cheering supporters.
“I can say to everybody ‘thank you for the victories, it’s wonderful’ or I can go up and say ‘who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and claimed a victory?’ she did very poorly actually.
Mr Trump also claimed Ms Haley had a “very bad night,” pointing out that she finished behind Ron DeSantis in Iowa, who dropped out of the race on Sunday and endorsed the former president.
“Ron beat her also. He came in second and he left. She came in third and she’s still hanging around,” he complained.
“In life you can’t let people get away with bulls***. You just can’t do that,” he added.
His remarks followed a series of angry posts on his Truth Social app, denouncing her as “DELUSIONAL.”
With 91 per cent of the vote counted on Wednesday morning, Mr Trump was leading Ms Haley in the Granite State by 54.6 per cent to 43.2 per cent, roughly in line with the 11 percentage point gap estimated by the final opinion polls before the primary.
Earlier, Ms Haley insisted that the party’s primary race was “far from over” despite another defeat to Donald Trump.
The former South Carolina governor remained upbeat at her primary night rally in New Hampshire on Tuesday, with predictions that she will pick up more delegates than expected from the Granite State.
“This race is far from over,” Ms Haley told the crowd in Concord, New Hampshire. “There are dozens of states left to go ... and the next one is my sweet state of South Carolina.”
She added: “I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight, he earned it and I want to acknowledge that.”
“New Hampshire is first in the nation – it is not last in the nation.”
Ms Haley also mocked the mental mistakes that Mr Trump had made on the campaign trail, like confusing her with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“I’ve long called for mental competency tests for politics over the age of 75,” she said. “Trump claims he’d do better than me in one of those tests. If he thinks that, then he should have no problem standing on a debate stage with me.”
And she added: “The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate will win this election.”