Former U.S. President Donald Trump took advantage of his first visit to Iowa this year to attack his Republican presidential rival Nikki Haley and respond to Democratic President Joe Biden, who called him a threat to American democracy. Speaking before a crowd of supporters just ten days before the crucial party conference in Iowa, part of the first round of the Republican nomination race, Trump painted a dark picture of the United States.
Trump described the U.S. as an "incapable" country suffering from "terrorists" and immigrants from "mental institutions" pouring across the border from Mexico. He responded to Biden, who warned of the dangers that could arise if Trump were elected for a second term during an event in Pennsylvania on Friday. Biden specifically criticized Trump's behavior on January 6, 2021, when a crowd of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol while lawmakers were certifying Biden's victory in the 2020 election.
Biden is likely to compete against Trump in the upcoming elections scheduled for November. Trump told his supporters at the large rally organized in the northwestern countryside of Iowa, "Nothing has improved under the fraudulent Joe Biden. Everything is in chaos."
Trump also attacked his rival Haley, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for two years during his administration. Although Haley trails Trump by more than 30 points in Iowa, she is ahead of him in New Hampshire. Trump stated, "Nikki Haley has been in the pocket of open-borders donors throughout her career."
In response, Haley's team cited her record as governor of South Carolina. The communications director for her team said, "Perhaps Donald Trump does not remember that Nikki Haley passed one of the toughest illegal immigration laws in the country in 2011 because he was still a liberal in New York City."
