Donald Trump faced blowback last week after mocking challenger Nikki Haley for her husband’s absence on the campaign trail, with even President Biden hammering the former president for not realizing that Michael Haley was serving overseas in the military.
While campaigning in Conway, South Carolina on February 10, Trump asked the crowd of supporters where Haley’s husband Michael was hiding and suggested that he knew his wife had no chance of winning, the Associated Press reported.
In response to a video of Trump’s remarks, Haley posted on X that her husband was “serving our country” overseas and said that this was something Trump would “know nothing about.”
Haley suggested that anyone who disrespected “the sacrifices of military families” had “no business being commander in chief.”
Michael Haley serves with the South Carolina Army National Guard and began a year-long deployment to the Horn of Africa in June, serving with the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade as a staff officer.
President Biden responded to the video posted on X by blasting Trump for not knowing that Haley’s husband was “serving his country” abroad. Biden accused Trump of believing that American troops are “suckers” and suggested that the former president wouldn’t recognize what it meant to serve his country “if it slapped him in the face.”
Michael Haley also responded to Trump, posting a meme on X suggesting that the difference between animals and humans is that an animal “would never allow the dumbest ones to lead the pack.”
Donald Trump has frequently been accused of attacking family members of his opponents as well as making derogatory remarks about serving or former members of the military.
During the 2016 primaries, Trump dismissed the service record of Senator John McCain, a former POW in Vietnam, saying he preferred “people who weren’t captured.”
Trump’s wife Melania has not made any campaign appearances during the 2024 primaries.
