Nikki Haley Hits Back at Donald Trump After He Mocks Her Husband

After former President Donald Trump taunted his Republican rival Nikki Haley over her husband's whereabouts on the campaign trail on Saturday, she responded by slamming him on social media.

Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former United Nations ambassador under the Trump administration, is running against the former president for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination and is his last serious Republican challenger.

The former governor's husband, Major Michael Haley, left in June 2023 for a yearlong deployment in Africa as a staff officer with the South Carolina Army National Guard, according to the Associated Press. He was deployed with the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, which is providing support in the Horn of Africa.

Despite Nikki Haley mentioning publicly that her husband is abroad and serving in the military, she has had to fend off unproven rumors, which first surfaced more than a decade ago that accused her of having multiple affairs. The rumors have given Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) allies fuel for a new wave of attacks on his rival's personal life.

While speaking on Saturday to a crowd of supporters at a "Get Out the Vote" rally in Conway, South Carolina, ahead of the state's GOP primary on February 24, Trump brought up Haley's husband, mocking the former governor of her spouse's absence on the campaign trail.

"Where's her husband? Oh, he's away," Trump said. "He's away! What happened to her husband? What happened to her husband. Where is he? He's gone."

While sharing a video of Trump's comments about her husband on X, formerly, Twitter, Haley slammed the former president.

"Michael is deployed serving our country, something you know nothing about," she wrote. "Someone who continually disrespects the sacrifices of military families has no business being commander in chief."

Newsweek reached out via email on Saturday night to representatives for Trump and Haley for comment.

Trump's loyal base of MAGA supporters launched the adultery attacks on his GOP rival last month, spreading rumors that Haley had two different affairs in the early 2000s. Haley denied any accusations of unfaithfulness to her husband at the time that these rumors first surfaced.

While the rumors were never proven and no significant new information has emerged, Trump supporters have continued to spread them with the attacks escalating when Haley's support rose in the polls.

Trump's taunting of Haley over her husband's absence at campaign events, comes after he faced months of speculation on his wife Melania Trump's whereabouts.

Since leaving the White House in January 2021, the former first lady has made very rare public appearances, even as her husband seeks a second stint in the White House. She was recently seen at the funeral of her mother, Amalija Knavs, who died on January 9.

Earlier on Saturday, Haley also took aim at Trump and President Joe Biden when her team handed out mental competency tests to attendees at her rally in South Carolina.

While Haley is trailing Trump in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, her team has said she has no plans to drop out.

She has repeatedly questioned Trump's mental competency on the campaign trail and argued that both the MAGA leader and Biden are too old to serve second terms as president. In addition, after her loss in the New Hampshire primary, Haley challenged Trump to face her directly, saying: "He thinks he'd do better [on a mental test] than me. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. But if he thinks that, then he should have no problem standing on a debate stage with me."