Haley suggests Trump is 'in decline' after mistaking her for Pelosi

Nikki Haley escalated her attacks on Donald J. Trump on Saturday, directly criticizing his mental acuity for the first time after the former president appeared to confuse her with Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, during his rally on Friday evening in New Hampshire.

During a news conference with reporters after her campaign event in Peterborough, N.H., Ms. Haley stopped short of calling Mr. Trump mentally unfit. But she did wonder whether he would “care about it enough” to lead the nation.

“My parents are elderly and I love them very much,” she said. “But when you see them reach a certain age, there is a decline. That is a fact – ask any doctor: there is a decline.”

During his rally, the former president accused Ms. Haley of failing to provide proper security during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and connected her to the House committee that later investigated it. Ms. Haley, who was not in a government role at the time of the attack, was at home in South Carolina that day, according to campaign officials.

The former governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, Ms. Haley, 52, opened her presidential bid this year with calls for “new generational leadership” and mental competency tests for candidates who are 75 or older. Although she continued to emphasize these calls throughout her candidacyshe has reserved her sharpest attacks on mental fitness for President Biden and Congress, which she calls “the most privileged nursing home in the country.”

The last time she came this close to directly defeating Mr. Trump was in October, after he criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, “very smart.” In response to these comments, Ms. Haley said, “To criticize the head of a country that just experienced massive bloodshed — no, that is not what we need in a president.”

Since her election night speech after the Iowa caucuses, Ms. Haley has sharpened her case against the former president, lumping Mr. Trump with Mr. Biden as backwards and barriers to an American revival. At her event in Keene, N.H., she criticized Mr. Trump for his leadership tone and asked the audience if they really wanted two “guys” in their 80s to vie for the presidency.

“I wasn't even in DC on January 6 – I wasn't in office yet,” she told the audience on Friday.

At a subsequent press conference, she suggested that the country was in too fragile a state to have a leader who is mentally unfit.

“It's a concern, and it's something Americans should be thinking about,” she said.