Nikki Haley fires back at 'lying' Trump ahead of NH primary: 'American people deserve the truth

 Haley defended her record as a conservative Friday on 'Fox & Friends'

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley joined "Fox & Friends" on Friday to respond to former President Trump's attacks on his agenda and his "too liberal" criticism. Trump has repeatedly attacked Haley's positions on Social Security and Medicare in the lead up to Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.

[Trump] is coming out and saying I want to cut Social Security. Not once have I said I want to cut Social Security. And everyone is talking about the facts. 'Is he conservative?' I want you - Ainsley, you've known me a long time. How am I not conservative? I was a Tea Party governor. I passed voter ID, I passed the toughest illegal immigration laws in the country, I cut taxes, I passed tort reform. We paid off our debt. I went to the United Nations, we cut $1 billion. Just because the media says so, because Donald Trump says so, it's wrong. We need to start telling the truth. And the problem with Donald Trump and Joe Biden is that they think that if they tell Americans something, it's true. But the problem is that both of these people are lying to the American people, and the American people deserve the truth.

I'm not going to do anything that isn't tough on the border, because I passed the toughest illegal immigration laws in the country. I'm going to be tough on China. And he was not tough on China. He praised President Xi dozens of times after China gave us Covid. There are so many examples of why we need to start asking Donald Trump questions and stop taking everything he says as gold, because I never once said I was going to cut Social Security. But he said he's going to raise the Social Security retirement age to 70. He proposed a 25 percent increase in the gas tax on all Americans. He put us in debt of $8 trillion in four years and our children will never forgive us for this.

What I'm telling you is not personal to me and Donald Trump. This is about how we save our country. I don't want my children to live like this. We don't need to continue living like this. And what does it say when the media decides who is liberal and who is conservative? Because I will return the question. What didn't I do that wasn't conservative? I have been conservative all my life. Find one thing no one can point to that says I'm not conservative. And so, look, I will tell you that I think it's important that the media be responsible with what we have, but we will continue to tell the truth. But the fact that Donald Trump is lying is another reason why he won't debate me, because he knows I will call him on it.

Haley, trailing former President Trump by double digits in the latest polls four days before the New Hampshire GOP primary, is taking advantage of every opportunity she can to defeat the GOP frontrunner.

Haley told reporters, "You look at Iowa. I mean, President Trump won by 56,000 votes in a state of 3 million people. We had very low turnout in Iowa. We had really good turnout in New Hampshire." Going." His first retail stop was Friday morning as he lauded Trump's landslide victory in Monday's Iowa caucuses.

A day earlier at a stop in Hollis, New Hampshire, the former South Carolina governor, who served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, also blamed the former president for GOP losses at the ballot box in recent election cycles. Was held guilty.