Claiming that Donald Trump "gets into name calling when he feels threatened and insecure", Nikki Haley, the former president's closest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, attacked him for advancing the 'birther' claim.
“I know Trump well. He gets into name-calling when he feels threatened and insecure. I'm not going to waste any energy on that,” said Ms Haley.
Last week, the 45th US President re-shared a post from The Gateway Pundit, which claimed that Ms Haley might be ineligible to be the US president or the vice president. The post explained that this is because Nikki Haley's parents were not US citizens when she was born in 1972.
On Thursday, Indian American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi also condemned Donald Trump, for his “birther” claims against his primary challenger Nikki Haley. In a statement, Mr Krishnamoorthi said, “It's sadly no surprise that Donald Trump is back at it with more false and racist ‘birther' claims. As a proud Indian American immigrant, the hateful attacks the former president is launching against Nikki Haley are all too familiar to me. Any Republican who claims to support the South Asian community should condemn this rhetoric.”
It must be noted that Donald Trump had previously raised a similar birther question for former US President Barack Obama and the current Vice President Kamala Harris.
As per the US Constitution, in a bid to run for the presidency, the candidate must be at least 35 years old, be a “natural-born” citizen and have been a resident of the nation for 14 years.
Last year, Donald Trump has also called for an end to birthright citizenship.
Meanwhile, after receiving more than 50 per cent votes, Donald Trump has secured a win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday. Indian-American Republican leader Nikki Haley, on the other hand, finished third in the Iowa caucuses.
While Nikki Hailey got 19.1 per cent of votes, Ron DeSantis secured the second spot with 21.2 per cent of votes. Another Indian-American Republican Leader Vivek Ramaswamy occupied the fourth position with 7.7 per cent of the votes.
