Trump mocked Haley, adding to his long history of racist attacks
During his first campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Donald J. Trump slipped into a booth at the iconic Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, NH, and was signing autographs when a woman yelled at him and stormed out of the diner.
“Enjoy your burger, racist!” she shouted, as the president-elect betrayed no response.
Mr. Trump never returned to the restaurant. But he continued to pile up accusations of racism during the 2024 campaign.
Trump first cemented his connection with the largely white Republican base more than a decade ago by stoking discomfort with the election of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president — kicking off the so-called “birther” movement .
This week, Trump launched his latest racially charged attack on former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants and his closest rival in the New Hampshire primary, by repeatedly mentioning her first name, Nimarata Nikki Randhawa.
On Friday, Mr. Trump referred to Ms. Haley as “Nimbra” in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, three days after he was criticized for calling her “Nimrada.” Mrs. Haley has long gone by her middle name, Nikki.
Both are racist dog whistles, similar to his continued focus on Obama's middle name, Hussein, and add to a long history of racially inflammatory statements during the campaign.
Ms. Haley told reporters on Friday that Trump's attacks exposed his own insecurities about the presidential election.
“When he does these tantrums, when he starts spending millions of dollars on TV, he's insecure — he knows something is wrong,” she said. “I'm not sitting there worrying about whether it's personal or what he means.”
At a rally for Ms. Haley in Manchester on Friday, supporters said they were pleased that the former governor refuted Mr. Trump's accusations.
“This is a continuation of the bullying and behavior of the third grader that should get him grounded,” said Kathy Holland, 75, a retired business owner. “We deserve leaders who act maturely.”
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said those who raised concerns about Trump's handling of race were guilty of “fake outrage racism.”
“They should get a life and live in the real world,” Mr Cheung said.
Trump's history with this issue goes back years before his formal entry into politics.
In February 2011, Mr. Trump began spreading the racist lie that Mr. Obama was not a U.S. citizen as he was testing the waters of a potential presidential campaign. Fox News host Sean Hannity discussed the so-called birth issue almost every night in April until Obama showed reporters his birth certificate later that month.
By then, a CNN poll showed Trump tied for first in a hypothetical primary. While Mr. Trump opted to return for a new season of “The Celebrity Apprentice” as host of the reality TV show rather than run for president, he ran for office in 2016 on similar issues.
That year, he questioned the citizenship of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the state's first Latino senator, who was born in Canada. Mr. Cruz's mother is American, which automatically granted her citizenship.
During his failed 2020 re-election bid, he falsely claimed that Kamala Harris, who would become the first woman and first person of color to be elected vice president, did not meet the country's citizenship requirements.
This month, he returned to that familiar playbook, accusing Ms. Haley on social media of not being a real American eligible to run for president — even as he defended his own legal eligibility to vote under the Constitution.
“I'll let the president's social media post speak for itself,” Jason Miller, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said last week at an event hosted by Bloomberg News.
After Tuesday's election in New Hampshire, the focus of the Republican primaries will be on Ms. Haley's home state of South Carolina, which has its own history of racially charged politics.
In February 2000, after Senator John McCain scored a come-from-behind victory over George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary, he was the target of a smear campaign in South Carolina. The attacks falsely claimed that McCain's wife, Cindy, was a drug addict and that the couple's daughter, Bridget, whom they adopted from Bangladesh, was the product of an illegal union.
“Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain for president,” some voters were asked on phone calls, “if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”
Michael Gold contributed reporting.