Trump insists he was being 'sarcastic' when he confused Nancy Pelosi for Nikki Haley

15 February 2024

Former President Donald Trump is doubling down on a gaffe that made headlines last month, in which he mistook former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) for former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who is his last remaining opponent in the GOP presidential primary.

The Daily Beast recently reported that the ex-president chided his critics for suggesting he was in a state of mental decline when he made the gaffe, and insisted that he was merely being "sarcastic."

"I interpose [the names], and they make a big deal out of it," Trump said. "I said: 'No, no, I think they both stink. They have something in common—they both stink,'" he added. "And remember this: when I make a statement like that about Nikki that means she will never be running for vice president... I’m not a Nikki fan and I’m not a Pelosi fan, and I when I purposely interpose names, they said: ‘He didn’t know Pelosi from Nikki, from tricky Nikki."

During a stump speech in New Hampshire, Trump repeated his debunked assertions that Pelosi refused his offer of 10,000 National Guard troops to secure the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and that Pelosi deleted evidence pertaining to the attack (his lawyers have had troves of evidence for months). Except when doing so, he referred to Pelosi as "Nikki Haley," saying her name three times in succession.

"By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know — did you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything. Deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it. Because of lots of things," Trump said. "Like Nikki Haley was in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people. Soldiers. National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don't want to talk about that."

Trump also said it was intentional when he mistook President Joe Biden for former President Barack Obama, as he has repeatedly done on the campaign stump.

"When I say that Obama is the president of our country they go: 'He doesn’t know that it's Biden! He doesn’t know,'" Trump said. "So it’s very hard to be sarcastic."

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