Trump is ‘unhinged’ and ‘diminished’, says Nikki Haley

Donald Trump is “unhinged” and “diminished”, said Nikki Haley, the former president’s last rival for the Republican presidential nomination, on Wednesday.

“To mock my husband, Michael and I can handle that,” the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador told NBC News’s Today, referring to comments by Trump about Michael Haley, a national guard officer deployed in Djibouti.

“But you mock one member of the military, you mock all members of the military … Before, when he did it, it was during the 2016 election, and everybody thought, ‘Oh, did he have a slip? What did that mean?’ The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016. He is unhinged. He is more diminished than he was.”

In the 2016 campaign, Trump mocked John McCain, an Arizona senator and former nominee for president who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Having avoided the draft for that war, Trump was expected to pay a heavy political price but did not, going on to attract controversy in office for allegedly deriding those who serve.

Eight years later, Trump has won Republican votes in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada and leads Haley in her own state, the next to vote, by vast margins.

Haley’s use of the word “diminished” spoke to concerns about Trump’s age – 77 – but also that of the president, Joe Biden, who at 81 is facing a barrage of Republican attacks about his fitness for office. Haley, 52, has said older politicians should face cognitive tests.

Initially shy of attacking Trump, Haley has turned fire his way as primary rivals have dropped out, leaving her the last impediment to a third Trump nomination. But Haley continues to say she will support Trump if he is nominated to take on Biden.

“I have said any of those 14 [Republican candidates] would