Tim Scott says 2024 hopeful Nikki Haley is getting so ‘desperate’ to win South Carolina’s primary that she is deploying her son Nalin, 22, to stoop to name-calling.
Sen. Scott (R-S.C.) is one of Trump’s biggest surrogates in South Carolina, which is also Haley’s home state. And ahead of the primary election there next Saturday, Haley’s son has gone full force against Trump’s team.
Nalin Haley’s son has employed the nickname ‘Senator Judas’ for Scott, who dropped out of the 2024 race in November, and endorsed Trump.
Former United Nations Amb. Haley first appointed Scott to his Senate seat in 2013, when she was governor of South Carolina.
‘Politics makes people and their families desperate,’ Scott told CBS Face the Nation host Robert Costa during a Sunday morning interview when asked about Nalin’s jab.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said the name-calling from Nikki Haley’s son Nalin is proof that their campaign is becoming ‘desperate’
‘It’s unfortunate for a person with a high caliber of an individual that she has been (sic) to stoop down to having her and her family refer to me – or anyone else – as Judas Iscariot, or any other name calling,’ he added.
‘The one thing I will say to your viewers, when you are attacked, please remember this: Do not take criticism from someone you would not take advice.’
Scott, however, wouldn’t say if he also calls on Trump to stop referring to Haley as ‘birdbrain.’
Haley lost the primary contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. In the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, Trump has 63 delegates compared to Haley’s 17.
She is now looking to pick up more delegates in South Carolina next week – banking on the fact that she was elected governor twice and is popular amongst Republicans in the Palmetto State. But polling shows Trump is still far ahead of Haley in South Carolina’s primary election.
The former Ambassador’s campaign insisted she plans to stick in the running through at least Super Tuesday, where 15 different states will head to the polls in their respective primary elections.
Nalin, 22, joins mother Nikki Haley during the NCAA college basketball game between Iowa and Minnesota on Saturday, December 30, 2023 in Iowa City, Iowa
Meanwhile, Haley’s son Nalin and daughter Rena, 26, have joined her on the campaign trail as her husband Major Michael Haley is deployed in Africa with the South Carolina National Guard.
Nalin has become quite the attack dog against his mother’s former rivals.
The senior at Villanova University dubbed Sen. Scott as a traitor and compared biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who dropped out of the race last month, to the likeness of the clown Pennywise from the horror film It.
Both Scott and Ramaswamy were once among the top competitors in the Republican primary field. Both dropped out and have since endorsed Trump.
Ramaswamy spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin questioned in a statement to DailyMail.com: ‘Didn’t Haley say to keep the kids out of it and now she’s using them as attack dogs?’
At a rally in Gilbert, South Carolina on Saturday, Nalin took time during his remarks introducing his mother to attack Scott.
‘We had a lot of them go up to New Hampshire, Nalin noted, ‘and I saw Trump standing side by side, he was next to Senator Judas — excuse me, Senator Scott,.’
This jab earned him ‘oohs’ from the audience, with one crowd member saying, ‘Ouch.’
Haley’s husband Maj. Michael Haley is deployed with the Army National Guard to Africa and is unable to campaign with his wife. But Nalin and Rena Haley, 26, have joined their mother as she travels across the country
Scott said on Sunday that he ‘prays for those who persecute you’ and says to ‘love your enemies’ as he encouraged forgiveness.
‘I know that they’re in a heated race, I know that it’s not going their way,’ he said on Sunday. ‘They’re going to lose their home state. It will be a devastating loss here in South Carolina. It was a devastating loss in New Hampshire.’
‘There is not a state coming forward that she’s going to win. So, I get the name calling. But it’s not about me, frankly. It’s about the American people.’