For years, Donald Trump questioned whether former President Barack Obama was really born in Hawaii in 1962, and not in Kenya as Trump believed.
It took until 2016 before Trump admitted he was wrong. By then, it had been five years since Obama made his birth certificate public.
In the same year, Trump also accused his closest rival in the election at the time, Senator Ted Cruz, of the same thing.
Eight years later, Trump has entered another primary election and after Ron Desanti’s announcement that he too is dropping out, there is now only one opponent left: Nikki Haley.
Suddenly a familiar narrative sails back up on the agenda and Trump once again asks the question: Was Nikki Haley really born in the United States?
Refers to conspiratorial report
On your social media site Truth Social Trump published a report on Monday from The Gateway Pundit, a website influential among Trump supporters. The report claims Nikki Haley’s Indian parents were not US citizens when Haley was born in South Carolina in 1972, which Trump says would disqualify Haley from running for president.
In addition to spreading the report, he also referred to her birth name “Nimarata”, writing about her as “Nikki ‘Nimrada’ Haley” on Truth Social.
– I can’t imagine what Trump hopes to gain from this if not to play the race card against Haley as a woman of color – and to capitalize on anti-immigrant prejudice, Laurence Tribe, a constitutional expert at Harvard, told NBC.
Haley: Trump does this when he’s threatened
But Haley was born in the United States, which means she can run.
– I know President Trump well. This is what he does when he feels threatened, Haley told CNN on Monday.
Haley is Trump’s last rival in the Republican race to become the party’s presidential nominee.
On Tuesday, New Hampshire will choose its candidate and although Haley has narrowed the gap, polls suggest the former president has a significant lead.