While promoting another debunked lie about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Donald Trump confused Nikki Haley for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
The gaffe comes as Trump was delivering remarks at a rally in Concord, N.H. on Friday.
After bragging about the size of his crowd, Trump accused Haley–who has never served in Congress–of denying his request to bring in the National Guard to the Capitol before the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“By the way, they never report the crowd on Jan. 6. You know Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know, they — do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it,” Trump claimed. “Because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security we offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”
Trump and Republicans have repeatedly tried to blame then-Speaker Pelosi for the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
In a previous statement debunking the claim, Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill told the Associated Press: “On January 6th, the Speaker, a target of an assassination attempt that day, was no more in charge of Capitol security than Mitch McConnell was. This is a clear attempt to whitewash what happened on January 6th and divert blame.”
The Capitol Police Board, which is made up of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol, was responsible for calling National Guard troops to the Capitol. The board decided not to call the guard before the insurrection but did eventually request assistance after the rioting had already begun, according to The AP.
This is the latest in a series of gaffes as the Trump campaign tries to portray Joe Biden as mentally unfit for office.
The former president has confused President Biden for President Barack Obama, twice, says Biden will lead us into World War II and has claimed to not be indicted despite being indicted four times.
