(RepublicanDaily.org) – Former president Donald Trump has taken his political trolling to the next level, as rival GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Halley called the former president and his campaign team out for sending her a bizarre gift: A birdcage.
The birdcage is ostensibly a reference to Trump’s insulting nickname for Haley – “birdbrain” – which is part of Trump’s signature behavior against people he perceives to rivals and adversaries. Haley, who is a former South Carolina governor and former (ironically Trump-appointed) U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, joins the ranks of “Corrupt Joe Biden,” “Liddle Mike Pence,” “Deranged Jack Smith,” and others who have received less than flattering monikers from the former commander-in-chief.
Haley has taken the prank in stride – people assumedly from Trump’s campaign left the birdcage, some bird food, and a note saying the “gift” was from the Trump campaign, outside her hotel room door in Iowa. Her campaign has called the stunt “weird, creepy, and desperate.” Haley’s campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, issued a statement saying that the prank was proof of Trump’s penchant for useless dramatics, something that America should leave behind. “America is better than this. Let’s go,” Ankney said.
While Trump continues to be the frontrunner in polls for the Republican primary, Haley has seen her star steadily rise, and in early voting states like New Hampshire and South Carolina, the former governor has managed to overtake Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as second choice for GOP voters.
Like many former allies of Trump, Haley has a complicated relationship with her former boss, and while praising his handling of the border crisis – especially compared to her assessment of how President Joe Biden is going about it – she has also said that the former chief executive’s government spending policies leave much to be desired. Haley called her former boss “thin-skinned and easily distracted.”
She has also not bought into the narrative that the January 6 events at the Capitol was a peaceful protest, nor has she believed Trump’s claims that Biden won the election through cheating. When she first announced her intention to contend for the GOP presidential nomination, Trump called her ”overly ambitious” and someone who “just couldn’t stay in her seat.”
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