Haley Says She’s Focused on Beating Biden, Brushes Off Questions on Trump

President Donald Trump meets with Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 9, 2018. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Feb. 19. skirted questions about how she differs from former President Trump.

The longtime political figure said she is instead focusing on defeating President Joe Biden in 2024.

“I don’t focus on President Trump,” Haley said of her primary opponent on “Fox News Sunday” when asked about differences between herself and the former president. “It’s amazing that the media wants to talk about that so much. I am focused on Joe Biden.”

In spite of her insistence that her candidacy has nothing to do with the former president, Haley, who served as the Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, will have to face Trump at some point during the primary race.

Trump and his former UN ambassador are the only major Republican candidates that have declared their campaigns for the upcoming election. Haley has largely avoided questions about her former boss. She has, however, called for a new generation of party leadership.

Trump has ridiculed Haley for earlier stating that she would not run if Trump ran in 2024.

In April 2021, Haley said she wouldn’t enter the race if Trump was running: “I would not run if President Trump ran,” Haley said. “And I would talk to him about it. That is something that we'll have a conversation about at some point if that decision is something that has to be made.”

The former South Carolina governor said during her recent interview that she believes there needs to be “new energy in the upcoming presidential race: ”I think we need to leave the status quo of the past and start looking ahead.”

Trump has changed how he talks about Haley’s candidacy since dissing the candidate. In an interview with Fox News just days ago, he said, “I’m glad she’s running. I want her to follow her heart—even though she made a commitment that she would never run against who she called the greatest president of her lifetime.”

Haley said no one questioned her about the former president during launch events last week in South Carolina and New Hampshire. She stated that they are more concerned with the Biden administration.

“Not one person asked me about President Trump,” Haley said on Fox News. “Everybody wanted to talk about Biden.”

The candidate targeted the political establishment in Washington during her 2024 presidential campaign kickoff speech, as The Epoch Times previously reported. She called for a generational change in leadership and mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75, along with other proposals.

“America is not past our prime,” Haley said during her speech to a crowd in Charleston, South Carolina, on Feb. 15. “It’s just that our politicians are past theirs.”