Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis turn fire on Donald Trump in Republican 2024 race
- Donald Trump targeted by Republican rivals ahead of Iowa presidential nomination contest on January 15
- Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis have sought to position themselves as better placed to win the White House
Two Republicans jostling for a distant second place behind Donald Trump in their race to be party flag-bearer took potshots at the former US president on Thursday, days before the first vote in the White House nomination process.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and one-time UN ambassador Nikki Haley turned their fire on their party’s presumptive nominee just 11 days before Republican voters in Iowa make their choice.
Neither candidate mentioned the other much during back-to-back “town hall” events on CNN.
Instead, they both sought to paint their own candidacies as a better bet than Trump to unseat Democratic President Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.
“The reality is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows (Trump),” Haley, a former South Carolina governor, told an invited audience in the Midwestern state.