‘I get even’: Trump targets Haley after she pledges to keep fighting him following 2 losses

(WASHINGTON) — “I don’t get too angry, I get even,” former President Donald Trump sniped on Tuesday night during his New Hampshire victory speech shortly after his former U.N Ambassador Nikki Haley, whom he’d just beaten by double digits, vowed to fight on against him for the 2024 Republican nomination.

“Who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and like claimed a victory? She did very poorly,” Trump said at his election watch party in Nashua, New Hampshire, after it became clear that he had fended off Haley’s challenge in the state where, so far, she has polled the best and where her allies had once predicted a “landslide.”

“She’s doing like a speech like she won,” Trump continued. “She didn’t win. She lost.”

That tone was a stark difference from his election night speech last week in Iowa, where he won a majority of the vote against three rivals but went on to praise his opponents, complimenting them on running good campaigns.

Two of those three hopefuls, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, quickly ended their White House bids and endorsed Trump. But not Haley. And on Tuesday night, she boasted of improving on the number of votes she got in Iowa (19%) compared to New Hampshire (43%).

Next up, she said, is South Carolina’s primary a month away.

“South Carolina voters don’t want a coronation. They want an election. And we’re going to give them one,” she said. “Because we are just getting started.”

Haley, as Trump noted, has not yet won a primary or in the caucuses and polls show she faces huge challenges in winning over GOP voters elsewhere in the country. He currently leads her by more than 30 points in South Carolina, according to 538.

On Tuesday night, though, she called herself a “fighter” and said there was still a contest to be had between them, even as other leading Republicans increasingly consolidate behind Trump and President Joe Biden has indicated they are essentially already running against one another.

Trump was visibly angry in his speech at Haley for vowing to stay in the race as he argued she has no viable pathway to victory.

His remarks — and his sometimes thinly veiled attacks, like suggesting there were reasons Haley could be “under investigation” — were emblematic of the frustrations within his campaign at Haley for refusing end her bid and unite around the front-runner as his aides argue she won’t achieve success in the next early states.

Haley decided not to participate in the Nevada Republican Party’s caucuses on Feb. 8 and instead chose to partake in the state-run primary two days prior, meaning she won’t garner any delegates in the state.

Trump and his campaign have already starting seizing on that decision, accusing her of being “scared” and preemptively claiming victory in Nevada.

Looking toward South Carolina, Haley’s home state, her chances are — right now — hardly better, Trump’s team says. In addition to his polling lead there, he has earned endorsements from South Carolina’s governor, its two senators and seven of eight members of the state’s Republican congressional delegation as well as many statewide officials.

Trump even highlighted his South Carolina backing in his New Hampshire victory speech, touting the fact that South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, whom Haley initially appointed, endorsed him over her.

“You must really hate her,” Trump said, turning to Scott on stage.

“Oh, I just love you,” Scott quickly rebutted.

Haley’s team pushed back on Trump’s speech about her on Tuesday, with communications director Nachama Soloveichik saying in part: “Two states have now voted in the presidential race, and Donald Trump barely received half of the vote – not exactly a ringing endorsement for a former president demanding a coronation.”

“His angry rant was filled with grievances and offered the American people nothing about his vision for our country’s future,” Soloveichik said.

But there is likely more criticism coming her way in the next few weeks from the former president and his allies.

Trump campaign senior advisers warned ahead of the New Hampshire primary that unless Haley left the race after losing in the state, she should be ready “to be absolutely demolished and embarrassed in her home state of South Carolina.”

Trump’s next campaign stop is in Phoenix, scheduled to deliver remarks at an Arizona Republican Party event on Friday.

The next day, Trump is set to hold another caucus rally in Las Vegas, differentiating himself from Haley by campaigning in Nevada despite the fact that he’s essentially the only candidate left running in the caucuses. Nevada, however, may be a battleground in the general election.

The Haley campaign has committed to staying in the race through Super Tuesday on March 5, focusing their attention on “open or semi-open primaries,” in 11 of the sixteen states, where non-Republicans can vote, with some restrictions, as Haley pushes to sway independent and more moderate voters to try to cut into Trump’s lead.

Her team claims they see “significant fertile ground” in the campaign calendar ahead.

The Haley campaign has also pointed to Trump’s legal battles which have pulled him off the trail as another argument as to why she should remain in the race.

He denies all wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty in his four criminal cases.

Earlier this week, Trump narrowly avoided a legal political collision course when a New York judge delayed his E. Jean Carroll civil defamation trial — allowing him to campaign in New Hampshire instead of going back to the courthouse for his testimony.

With two major rulings set to decide the trajectory of his court challenges — pending U.S. Supreme Court decisions on whether he can be taken off state primary ballots based on the 14th Amendment and whether presidential immunity protects him from his criminal election subversion case — Trump is expected to continue to juggle his legal schedule and political schedule throughout his election cycle.

Still, Trump has maintained a consistent message that the legal battles he faces are one of the major reasons he’s vying for another presidential term — contending that his fight against the charges is really a fight on behalf of his movement against government overreach.

Prosecutors, however, have cast him as illegally holding onto government secrets and seeking to interfere with democracy, among other accusations.

ABC News’ Abby Cruz and Nicholas Kerr contributed to this report.

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