Trump Dusts Off Racist Dog Whistle for Nikki Haley

Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Hats off to whatever adviser told Donald Trump to push a unity message during his Iowa caucus victory speech. The former president was unusually gracious on Monday night, calling his rivals “Ron and Nikki” rather than “DeSanctimonious” and “Bird Brain.” And he used the words come together five times, as in “I really think this is time now for everybody, our country, to come together. We want to come together whether it’s Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative.”

Trump actually stayed on message for the first half of his 20-minute speech. But after most networks broke away from his remarks, he returned to his usual election lies and talk of an “invasion” at the southern border. A day later, he was back to lobbing nasty attacks at Haley with a new dash of racism.

On Tuesday morning, as Trump sat in a courtroom for the opening day of a second E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, his Truth Social account sent out more than 31 messages attacking her. Then, later in the afternoon, he turned his attention to Haley, whom he referred to as “Birdbrain”:

On Tuesday evening, Trump stepped up his criticism of Haley at a rally in Atkinson, New Hampshire, saying she’s a “disaster” who did a poor job as his United Nations ambassador and is “not tough enough” for the presidency. “Nikki Haley is counting on the Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primary,” Trump added, per the New York Times.

A short time later, Trump launched a much nastier attack on Truth Social, referring to Haley as “Nimrada”:

The former South Carolina governor was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, as she explained in a 2018 tweet. Last year, her campaign told the Associated Press that she has gone by her middle name since birth.

Clearly, Trump calling Haley by her first name, which he misspelled, was another racist dog whistle. As Haley’s poll numbers in the New Hampshire primary improved in recent weeks, Trump returned to his old racist playbook. Earlier this month, he floated a birther conspiracy theory suggesting Haley is ineligible for the presidency because she’s the child of Indian immigrants (which is untrue and absurd). “Nimrada” is just 2024’s “Barack ‘HUSSEIN’ Obama,” meant to suggest Trump’s non-white political foe is devious or un-American. So much for the new-and-improved Donald Trump.