Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley blasted GOP primary rival former President Trump for his past praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin following the death of the country’s top opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Friday.
“Putin did this,” Haley wrote Friday morning on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, in response to news of Navalny’s death in prison. “The same Putin who Donald Trump praises and defends. The same Trump who said: ‘In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that’.”
The former South Carolina governor has continued to intensify her attacks against Trump, under whom she served as United Nation ambassador, as her home state’s primary draws closer.
The Russian Federal Prison Service said Friday that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and lost consciousness, after which he was pronounced dead.
Haley, who is trailing Trump in the polls ahead of the Feb. 24 South Carolina primary, has repeatedly gone after the former president on the campaign trail for his apparent friendliness to foreign dictators. Her campaign reinforced that tactic on Valentine’s Day, dishing out satirical love letters that highlighted Trump’s past quotes about world leaders of countries that are considered adversarial to the U.S. One of the letters referenced comments Trump made in 2018 about Putin and his victory in Russia’s election that year.
“I called President Putin of Russia to congratulate him on his election victory. The Fake News Media is crazed because they wanted me to excoriate him. They are wrong!”
Putin is widely expected to win reelection once again in Russia’s upcoming election in March.
Haley also warned against taking “the side of a thug” earlier this month after Trump’s warning to NATO allies that he would entice Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to nations that are “delinquent.”
Trump retains a comfortable lead over Haley in South Carolina. The former governor currently trails the former president by close to 35 percentage points in the state in the latest The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s aggregate of polls.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.