Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ga., and Matt Gaetz, Fla., joined former President Trump’s first official campaign rally on Saturday and took turns delivering blows to presidential candidate Nikki Haley.
The rally was in Waco, Texas, during the 30th anniversary of federal agents burning down the compound belonging to the religious cult Branch Davidians. The federal law enforcement siege killed more than 80 people, including nearly 30 children. But Trump’s team says the location and timing of the rally have nothing to do with the siege.
Greene and Gaetz, both of whom are allies of Trump, delivered remarks in support of the former president during the rally on Saturday.
The representatives both hit at Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former United Nations ambassador under Trump, over her foreign policy agenda while also questioning whether she is a serious presidential contender.
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The Georgia congresswoman knocked Haley as a legitimate presidential opponent to Trump, saying nobody has a “list of names” like the former president does to “clean out the swamp.
“Here’s what we know about President Trump,” she said in an interview with the conservative outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network. “President Trump has a list of names, and no one else has that. Ron DeSantis doesn’t have that. Nikki Haley, or whoever she is, she doesn’t have anything like that. No one else knows how to clean out the swamp like President Trump.”
Greene’s dig at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis comes despite him not declaring a run for president, although he is expected to enter the race in the coming months. Trump has made repeated attacks on the Florida governor, who is widely viewed as the ex-president’s biggest threat for the GOP nomination in 2024.
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In Gaetz’s speech targeting Haley, he mocked her previous comments in a campaign video in which she said, “I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you are wearing heels.”
“Nikki Haley says that we must kick all of the world’s bullies with heels,” Gaetz said at the rally. “But we cannot go kicking and screaming around the globe, starting new wars behind every Middle Eastern sand dune as Nikki Haley would have us do.”
“So, Nikki Haley can keep clicking her heels,” he continued. “What we know is that President Donald Trump will bring America’s enemies to heel.”
And while Trump has ramped up his attacks on DeSantis in recent months, he has not taken the same approach toward Haley, who he welcomed to the presidential race last month by saying, “the more the merrier.”
“I’m glad she’s running,” Trump told FOX News Digital at the time. “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.”
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has also declared that he is running for president and other Republicans are mulling a White House run, including DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Vice President Mike Pence.
