Nikki Haley Floats Raising Retirement Age to Curb Rising Debt

The former UN ambassador stressed the need to continue to support Ukraine, and said NATO should be expanded, noting that Russia had never invaded a country that was a member of the alliance.

“We need more friends not less,” she said.

It was a familiar theme for Haley. In one of the most heated exchanges of the debate, Haley hammered businessman Vivek Ramaswamy for his stance toward Russia and its war in Ukraine as well as on China and other global issues.

“You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows,” she said, to thunderous applause. “The problem is that Vivek doesn’t understand, he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel, you don’t do that to friends.”

Haley, 51, has previously said she would consider ending normal trade relations with China over the fentanyl crisis; bar the U.S. from buying Chinese-made drones; ban TikTok and the payment app WeChat; halt exports of technology to China; and restrict China from buying US land. Haley has also argued for strengthening the U.S. relationship with Taiwan.

She has positioned herself as representing a fresh generation of conservative leadership, calling for mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75, a group that includes both Trump, 77, and President Joe Biden, 80.

“I think I’m going to be the winner of the primary, and I think that’s why we need a new generational conservative leader,” she said Thursday. “We’ve got to leave the past and the negativity behind us, and we’ve got to start focusing on the real problems at hand and start getting things done.”

–With assistance from Stephanie Lai and Justin Sink.

(Photo: Bloomberg)