Cockburn wondered last week what would happen to anti-MAGA voters after their chosen candidates dropped out of the race. Would they be able to return to the Trump fold? Though Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have reignited their months-long feud after the Florida governor dropped out Sunday, it’s last woman standing Nikki Haley who has drawn the bulk of Trump’s ire since. Taking a page from Kari Lake’s “get the hell out” playbook, Trump decreed on Truth Social Wednesday night that Haley donors will be blacklisted from his campaign.
“Anyone that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and we will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL,” Trump posted.
Trump is specifically targeting the donor class, who he claims often come to him after the candidate they back has dropped out of the race. “This is standard with politics, but no longer with me,” Trump said in the post. Despite her eleven-point defeat in the New Hampshire primary, Haley claimed that she has raised over $1 million in donations since Tuesday. She also has nearly a dozen fundraisers slated before the South Carolina primary, including a major event hosted by Wall Street backers on January 30. Still, it must hurt that LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman, who donated $250,000 to a pro-Haley super PAC last year, has paused funding to her campaign — and rumor has it more six-figure donors may do the same.
Haley has, quelle surprise, already started fundraising off Trump’s post, selling “Barred. Permanently.” t-shirts through her campaign website.
Trump also attacked Haley’s competency on the world stage in his post, which calls into question why he ever appointed her UN ambassador. “I knew Nikki well, she was average at best, is not the one to take on World Leaders, and she never did,” Trump said. “ That was up to me, and that is why they respected the United States.”
After losing the New Hampshire primary, Haley passed off her defeat as victory, saying that her team was “thrilled” with the results. This was the final straw for Trump, who kicked up the Haley hate within hours. “We’ve won almost every single poll in the last three months against Crooked Joe Biden, almost every poll. And she doesn’t win those polls. And she doesn’t win those,” Trump said in his victory speech Tuesday night. “Let’s not have somebody take a victory when she had a very bad night, she had a very bad night.”
On Tuesday night, Trump went after White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany after she advised him to adopt a general election tone and encouraged him to unite the party and win independent voters. During Fox’s coverage of Tuesday night’s New Hampshire primary, McEnany also criticized the former president for attacking Haley instead of Joe Biden.
“I don’t need any advice from RINO Kayleigh McEnany on Fox,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Just had a GIANT VICTORY over a badly failing candidate, ‘Birdbrain,’ and she’s telling me what I can do better. Save your advice for Nikki!”
