Fact check: Haley falsely claims Biden calls everyone who doesn’t support him fascist

Washington CNN —

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley falsely claimed on Saturday that President Joe Biden refers to anyone who doesn’t support him as “fascist.”

Haley sought to lump Biden with former President Donald Trump, who pledged in a speech last fall to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections” and went on to say that “the real threat is from the radical left.”

She told reporters in South Carolina: “Think about it. Of the two main candidates that you’re talking about, Joe Biden refers to anyone who doesn’t support him as fascist. Donald Trump refers to anybody that doesn’t support him as vermin. I call everybody who supports me or doesn’t support me Americans. And that’s where we have to get back to again.” Haley made a similar claim about Biden at a Wednesday campaign event in South Carolina, saying, “Right now … Joe Biden’s calling all of Donald Trump’s supporters fascists, and Donald Trump’s calling all of Joe Biden’s supporters vermin.”

Facts First: Haley is wrong about Biden, who has never publicly referred to “anyone who doesn’t support him” or “all of Donald Trump’s supporters” as fascist. While Biden has described Trump and devotees of Trump’s “make America great again” movement as undemocratic extremists who threaten the rule of law, he has not called them “fascists” – and he has repeatedly emphasized that his criticism of these “MAGA” Republicans does not apply to what he calls “mainstream” or even “conservative” Republicans. Biden did once call the “philosophy” behind Trump’s movement “almost like semi-fascism,” but he did not go so far as to label the