The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has launched a new attack on her rivals in the 2024 election – fellow party member Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, with an advertisement campaign targeting their age.
In a new series of political ads, first reported by the New York Times, under the theme of “Grumpy Old Men,” the former governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations has an explicit strategy to go after the age of the two men likely to secure their respective parties’ nominations for president.
The geriatric-themed video ads will be called Stumbling Seniors, Basement Buddies and Profligate Pols, the New York Times further reported.
In a reference to the 1993 movie Grumpy Old Men, starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Haley posted an image on X, formerly Twitter, replacing the actors’ faces in a version of the movie poster with the faces of Biden and Trump.
“The rematch nobody wants …” she posted.
The rematch nobody wants... pic.twitter.com/aIBkDQbiP4
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 31, 2024
Haley is seeking to highlight the fact that Trump, 77, and Biden, 81, are the oldest candidates to ever run for re-election to the White House.
Haley, 52, has previously floated the idea of mental competency tests for politicians, particularly for those over the age of 75. She raised instances in which Biden and Trump had “senior moment[s]” and seemed confused, like when Trump confused Haley with the former house speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this month when speaking about the 6 January 2021 insurrection.
“Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 national guard soldiers. They turned it down,” Trump said, referencing his alleged offer of troops to help secure the US Capitol during the attack by some of his supporters who were seeking – ultimately unsuccessfully – to stop the congressional certification of Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 election.
Haley has capitalized on Trump’s gaffe.
“Do we really want to go into an election with two fellas who are going to be president in their 80s?” Haley asked an audience at a campaign event.
Haley assures her audiences in rallies and town halls that she is not being “disrespectful” by raising the question.
“We all know 75-year-olds that can run circles around us,” Haley said at one town hall. “And then we know Joe Biden.” She has said in a previous ad: “I’ll just say it: Biden’s too old.”
Haley is trying to position herself as a “new generational leader” but is far behind Trump in the Republican nominating race, having lost the first contests, in Iowa and New Hampshire. Haley’s home state of South Carolina holds its Republican primary next month.
Haley’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
