Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley barnstormed Southern California on Wednesday, just as primary ballots are starting to arrive in voters’ mailboxes.
The former governor and U.N. ambassador is courting voters — and fundraising — while in town.
She is introducing herself to Southern California voters, highlighting her tenure as the Palmetto State’s former chief executive and her foreign policy experience as a U.N. ambassador. But Haley, 52, is also ramping up her criticisms of former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner in the GOP primary race, saying he begets “chaos” and is focused more on himself than on voters.
“I voted for Donald Trump twice. I was proud to serve America in his administration, but chaos follows him,” Haley said at the Wild Goose Tavern in Costa Mesa on Wednesday morning. “We can’t be a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.”
Pointing to House Republicans knocking down an Israel aid package and an appellate court’s recent ruling that Trump isn’t immune from prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, Haley said: “Every bit of it is chaos, and he’s got his fingerprints on every bit of it.”
“We need someone with executive experience, but we also need someone who knows national security,” Haley said.
Her message to local voters, Haley told the Southern California News Group in an exclusive interview in Costa Mesa, is: “Let’s make America normal again.”
“There’s a decision that (voters in Southern California) have to make. Do we go with the same or do we go in a new direction? And more of the same is not just Joe Biden; it’s also Donald Trump,” Haley said. “Are we really going to give them two candidates in their 80s? We can do better than that.”
Haley has called for term limits and mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75. She said those views — and others — have fueled…
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