Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley groups former US President Donald Trump and US President Joe Biden in the same category: bad.
In the interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, Haley questioned whether Trump and Biden had too many issues surrounding them that just distracted them from being effective leaders, including the rivals’ ages, the numerous investigations against Trump, as well as investigations into Biden’s son, Hunter.
“You’ve got a country in disarray, you’ve got a world on fire and you’re going to focus on people who hurt your feelings? You’re going to focus on investigations that are involved with your families? You’re going to focus on vengeance,” Haley said of the two presidential rivals.
Bash then pushed Haley to answer whether one of them was better than the other.
“If either one of them was good, I wouldn’t be running. Yes, they are equally bad,” Haley said.
“That’s why I’m running,” she added. “I don’t think we need to have Biden or Trump. I don’t think we need to have two 80-year-olds sitting in the White House when we basically gotta make sure that we can handle the war situation that we’re in.”
Haley’s comments echo a concern that political science experts have about the advanced age of many people in Congress and in the White House, including presidents, according to NPR’s reporting. Biden is 80 years old and Trump is 77.
Kevin Munger, political science professor at Penn State University, told NPR that ailing health, lagging technological skills and cultural differences are a part of the problem of having a large number of leaders in advanced ages.
“There’s just no way for people in older generations who experienced the early part of their life cycle in a very different time period to understand where young people are coming from,” Munger told NPR.
At a rally on Saturday in Keene, New Hampshire, Haley again called out Trump’s age after he seemingly confused her with Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) during his speech one day earlier. In response to the mix up, Haley said it appeared that Trump was “not as sharp” as he “used to be.”
Trump told his supporters at his Manchester, New Hampshire, rally on Saturday that he “aced” a cognitive test recently and that his “mind is stronger now than it was 25 years ago.”
Haley is now competing one-on-one with Trump for the Republican presidential nomination after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump on Sunday.