Nikki Haley ramps up attacks on Trump ahead of South Carolina showdown

Nikki Haley has ramped up her criticism of Donald Trump over the course of the 2024 presidential campaign. But she’s taking the attacks and the back-and-forth to a new level as she digs into a month of campaigning in South Carolina before the state’s Feb. 24 primary.

She was greeted in her home state by about a dozen Trump supporters protesting outside her Wednesday-night rally here. And Haley gave back as good as she was getting, dispensing with her usual stump speech introduction to go directly after the former president at the top of her own remarks on Wednesday.

“Bring it, Donald,” she said, as she challenged the former president to a debate.

She brought up Trump’s focus on her in his victory speech on the night of the New Hampshire primary, calling it a “temper tantrum.”

“I know that’s what he does when he is threatened, and he should feel threatened, without a doubt,” she said, as the crowd of hundreds cheered.

In another escalation, Haley — who says her campaign raised $1 million in online and small-dollar donations in the 24 hours after her speech in New Hampshire on Tuesday night — fundraised off of Trump’s attacks for the first time Thursday.

In response to the former president’s threat on Truth Social that anyone who donates to Haley would be “be permanently barred from the MAGA camp,” the Haley campaign began selling T-shirts that said “BARRED. PERMANENTLY.”

Despite growing calls to drop out and have the Republican Party coalesce around Trump after his 11-point win over Haley in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, Haley indicated her intention to stay in the race, saying, “Americans deserve better than what they have in these two options.”

“Listen, we’ve only had two states that have voted,” she said Wednesday. “We got 48 more that deserve to vote.”