United States President Joe Biden defended GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley after former President Donald Trump questioned her husband's whereabouts.
The situation comes after the Republican businessman dragged Michael Haley into the swirl of personal attacks he lobbed against her over the weekend. The comments were made during a rally that was held at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina.
The former president questioned the whereabouts of Haley's husband, who is currently serving an active duty deployment in the Horn of Africa for the South Carolina Army National Guard. He said, "Where's her husband? Oh, he's away. He's away."
The Republican businessman seemingly implied that the former South Carolina governor, who is the sole high-profile Republican still battling him for the GOP presidential nomination, was having challenges in her marriage that would explain her husband's absence.
In a social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Biden said that the answer to that question was that Michael was abroad, serving his country. He added that his predecessor would not know about service to his country if it "slapped him in the face," as per Politico.
Currently, some polls that pit Haley against Biden in a general election matchup show that the Republican lawmaker comes out on top. However, in order to succeed, she will have to beat out Trump for the GOP nomination.
The former president has long dominated the primary, even as the field has narrowed and he currently holds a substantial lead over Haley in her home state. During his visit to South Carolina, Trump also said that he would encourage Russians to do "whatever the hell they want" to NATO allies that did not meet the military alliance's spending guidelines.
Trump's comments against his rivals come as he himself is currently out on bail in relation to criminal charges that he faces in Georgia. Prior to attacking Haley's husband, he also claimed that the former South Carolina governor was in charge of security for the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, despite her not holding any government position at the time.
Serving the United States
Some people have suggested that the former president was insinuating that the major left for full-time deployment, the second of his career, in an attempt to "escape" his wife. The desperate personal attacks suggest that Haley has gotten deep under the former president's skin, according to CNN.
In the past few weeks, Haley has repeatedly called out Trump's gaffes, even going as far as handing out mental competency tests to voters during a recent rally. She responded swiftly to the GOP frontrunner's attack on her husband, saying that her husband was deployed to serve the United States.
Trump's latest remarks are the latest example of him disparaging his opponents based on their U.S. military service. He also went back to questioning whether or not the late Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was a hero because the former president liked "people who weren't captured."
Throughout the Republican businessman's political career, he has faced accusations of disregarding long-standing norms on avoiding attacking current or past service members or people in a politician's family, said the Associated Press.
