Trump needs Nikki Haley, but he can’t stop hating on her

Donald Trump’s campaign is reportedly in talks with frenemy Nikki Haley to stage an event together, amid his poor numbers with women voters and general misogyny. And on Friday, Trump was asked on “Fox & Friends” about enlisting Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations whom he called “birdbrain.”

"Let me just tell you,” Trump said. “Nikki Haley and I fought, and I beat her by 50, 60, 90 points. I beat her in her own state by numbers that nobody's ever been beaten by. I beat Nikki badly.”

Trump then complained that nobody ever asks him about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s other main rival during the Republican presidential primaries. 

"And they keep talking about Nikki, Nikki. I like Nikki,” he said. “Nikki, I don't think she should have done what she did. And that's fine that she did it. But even in her own state, in South Carolina, where she was the governor, I beat her by a number that nobody ever heard, like 50 points or something.” (For the record, he beat her by 20 points.)

During the interview, Trump inadvertently fed the narrative of his erratic and seemingly diminishing cognitive state, offering up this strange set of thought-dots:

TRUMP: And then they say, “Oh, when is Nikki coming back in?” And Nikki is in. Nikki is helping us already. But it's just, people keep saying, “When do you bring—” They don't say when you bringing this one. Everybody is in. And Nikki is already in. You know, she's out campaigning and Elon Musk is campa— Look, I watched a rocket ship land four days ago.

“FOX & FRIENDS” HOST STEVE DOOCY: That was stunning!

Stunning, indeed!

In May, when Haley endorsed the man she’d previously described as “unstable and unhinged,” it was disappointing but not surprising. Just as unsurprising was how Trump treated the news—and her—with the same dismissive, misogynistic condescension that repels the women he needs to vote for him. Nothing has changed.

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