Trump fires back at Haley

“When Nikki said that, I wasn’t offended”.

Trump said Haley was “very weak” on illegal immigration and hypocritical, noting that in the past she has asked him for major campaign contributions.

While never mentioning Trump’s name, Haley’s effort on Tuesday to sketch out a kinder and gentler vision of the Republican Party was aimed squarely at pushing back against the billionaire’s populist campaign for the White House.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley drew harsh criticism from fellow conservatives after she took swipes at presidential front-runner, Donald Trump, in her response to President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address.

Haley urged the public to resist “the siren call of the angriest voices”, which she later admitted was an implicit shot at Trump as well as other people.

“I think he is going to reinforce what he wants to do to make America great again”. But Bush and other establishment Republicans have struggled to break through, while Ryan and Haley, as prominent elected officials in their own right, have their own platforms. “By no means am I trying to endorse everything that she’s doing, but I do think that a lot of this, including parts of the speech last night, were admirable”.

She criticized the “angry” voices in the Republican Party that were creating an unwelcoming atmosphere for the very voters that the party needs to attract in order to expand its base.

“The Republican speech and President Obama’s speech both had the same thesis, which is an attack on one person”, said Brat, who hasn’t endorsed in the GOP race.

Dr. Bob Oldendick, a USC political scientist, says Gov. Haley’s speech was different from previous ones because she didn’t go through the president’s State of the Union address point by point.

Haley said Wednesday that tone and language matters in the election, especially with Trump, whom she called a friend.

Haley was present in the audience along with her husband when the question was asked.

In defending her positions to reporters this afternoon, Haley let loose a weird, amnesiac tale of our country’s past. She made a comment about the anger but I do feel angry about it because our country is doing so poorly.

“I’m very strong on illegal immigration”. They just haven’t accommodated enough, haven’t crossed the aisle, have been too hard, aggressive and assertive.

To help “fix” US politics, Obama pressed for an end to “gerrymandering”, the practice of drawing voting districts in ways that gives advantage to a particular party; reducing the influence of “dark money” or political spending in which funding sources do not have to be disclosed; and making voting easier.

This is the first GOP presidential debate of 2016, where contenders will be duking it out in one of the early primary states.