Trump on Haley: 'She's gonna lose like by 80 points tonight' – Detroit News
Former President Donald Trump all but declared victory in Michigan’s presidential primary several hours before the polls closed Tuesday, labeling his lone Republican rival still in the race, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, “a joke.”
“I mean, Nikki’s not even a factor,” Trump said in a mid-afternoon interview on WJR (760 AM). “She’s gonna lose like by 80 points tonight. She’s become a joke.”
Trump made the comments about Haley, who served as his ambassador to the United Nations when he was president, when asked about his message is to voters who are concerned about his multiple criminal indictments and legal issues.
Earlier in the day, during another interview on a conservative talk radio program in Metro Detroit, Trump targeted Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain in his closing Tuesday morning message to state primary voters.
About 90 minutes after polls opened for the presidential primary in much of Michigan, the Republican frontrunner appeared on a WFDF (910 AM) Superstation radio show hosted by conservative commentator Justin Barclay.
Barclay asked Trump what his “final message” was to the people of Michigan on the day of the primary as former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley competes with him for Republican votes. Other GOP candidates are on the ballot but have dropped out of the race.
“Well, you have a terrible governor who sold you out, and you have a terrible head of the United Auto Workers. Just absolutely atrocious,” Trump replied. “And I’m the one that hasn’t. We put America first. They don’t put America first.”
Whitmer, a second-term Democratic governor, and Fain, whose union endorsed Democratic President Joe Biden’s reelection in January, have been among Trump’s most vocal critics in Michigan.
Whitmer posted on social media Tuesday afternoon that Trump’s remark about her was an “attack on the progress we’ve made in our state.”
“Michigan, I got your back,” the governor said. “And I won’t stop fighting like hell for you.”
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Both Whitmer and Fain appeared with Biden when he visited Michigan on Feb. 1. In January, Fain argued that Trump “had failed to stand with working-class people while he served in the White House.”
“The only weapon of mass destruction we’ve faced in the last 40 years has been corporate greed,” Fain said. “Because that’s what drives this. And that’s Trump’s world.”
But Trump said Tuesday morning that the Southern border was safer when he was president. He referenced the fact that both he and Biden plan to visit the U.S.-Mexico border later this week.
“We found out how to get him off his ass, and that’s nice,” Trump said of Biden.
Trump also said auto manufacturing jobs in Michigan had been “systematically stolen.”
“They’re going to Mexico,” Trump said. “That’s a big deal. They’re going to Mexico. And China is building plants in Mexico, massive plants. And they think they’re going to just sell those cars over the border.”
The former president vowed Tuesday to impose “tariffs on these companies bringing in millions of cars into our country.”
“I’m going to put tariffs so that we’re going to make the cars in this country, not China and all of these other countries,” Trump said.
More:Polls are open: What to know on voting in Tuesday’s Michigan presidential primary election
More:Early voting. Absentee. Election Day votes. How ballots are counted in Michigan
The former president re-stated his false claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him through widespread fraud. In 2020, Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points 51%-48%. Bipartisan canvassing boards, a series of court rulings and an investigation by Republican state senators upheld the result.
“It will make it even sweeter,” Trump said of potentially winning the 2024 race.
In a second radio interview later in the day on WJR (760 AM), Trump was asked how he would bring together the warring factions of the Republican Party in Michigan and whether there’s room on the “Trump Train” for supporters of Haley or former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Trump did not directly answer, but noted he’s led Biden and Haley in polls.
“It’s wonderful to say you’re gonna run, but she hasn’t won anything,” Trump said of Haley.
Asked what his message is to voters who are concerned about his multiple criminal indictments and legal issues, Trump said those court cases have resulted in his highest poll numbers.
“I’m killing everybody. I mean, Nikki’s not even a factor. She’s gonna lose like by 80 points tonight. She’s become a joke,” Trump said. “I tell them very sincerely, these are started by DOJ and Biden’s people because he can’t get elected the other way.”
Haley, a former South Carolina governor, has argued in recent days that Trump divided Republicans and played a role in recent GOP election defeats in Michigan.
“As long as they keep saying that, Republicans will keep losing. Period,” Haley said in an interview Sunday of Trump’s claim the 2020 election was stolen from him.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
Staff Writer Melissa Nann Burke contributed.