Former President Donald Trump, D-Calif., appears to have mistakenly referred to GOP challenger Nikki Haley instead of Rep. Nancy Pelosi while discussing the Jan. 6 riots at a campaign rally in New Hampshire Friday night.
During Trump's remarks to a crowd of supporters in Concord, NH, he spoke for more than 90 minutes and repeatedly berated Haley, who served in his administration as ambassador to the United Nations and is not a member of Congress.
“Nikki Haley, you know they Did you know that they destroyed, destroyed, destroyed all the information, all the evidence, everything? This is all due to a number of things, including Nikki Haley being in charge of security. We gave her 10,000 men, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they wanted. They rejected it. They don't want to talk about it. They are very dishonest,” Trump said.
NBC News has reached out to Trump's campaign for comment on his comments.
Trump previously accused Pelosi of turning away 10,000 soldiers on Jan. 6. Deleted. The committee's final report on January 6, now defunct, said: “Some have suggested that President Trump ordered 10,000 troops ready by January 6. The Select Committee did not find any evidence for this. In fact, President Trump's Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller directly denied this while testifying under oath.
Trump's confusion comes as he often portrays 81-year-old President Joe Biden as confused and mentally unfit for office. The 77-year-old former president has previously confused politicians during his speeches. In September, Trump confused Biden with former President Barack Obama, saying, “With Obama, we won an election that everybody said they couldn't win.”
During that same September speech, Trump also said, “If we trusted Biden, we'd be in World War II very quickly.”
Trump defended changing the names of Obama and Biden, saying he was changing them “mockingly” as a “sign that other people may actually have a very large influence in the running of our country.”
In October, Trump referred to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as the leader of Turkey, and when he was in Sioux City, Iowa, he greeted a crowd saying he was from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
While Biden has had his fair share of gaffes and flubs, he hasn't made his predecessor's mental health a major campaign issue like Trump.
For example, Biden asked if Representative Jackie Walorski was in the audience at a White House event in 2022. — nearly two months after the Indiana Republican Died in a car accident. After Walorski's death, the president issued a statement expressing his condolences.
In a September NBC News poll, voters expressed concern about the age of Trump and Biden. About 74% of respondents said they had great or moderate concerns that “at 80, Joe Biden does not have the mental and physical health necessary to run for a second term as president.” About 47% of respondents expressed similar concerns about Trump.