Nikki Haley's presidential campaign, through a new advertising spot, is panning Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before his campaign launch as being an "echo" of former President Donald Trump.
In the spot, titled "A choice, not an echo," Haley's team said she's the true alternative to Trump and cited several instances in which it said DeSantis has echoed Trump's rhetoric, reports The Washington Examiner.
A DeSantis political team official confirmed to Newsmax that the governor will make his announcement on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon during a discussion with Elon Musk, the social media site's CEO.
Haley's spot opens with a quote from Trump, saying that the governor "was totally different. Whatever I want, he wants," before showing DeSantis's "Build the Wall" ad spot from his 2018 election cycle.
In it, DeSantis is shown teaching his child to "build the wall" and to say "Make America Great Again."
Since then, DeSantis has said the ad was satirical, but Trump's allies have also poked at the governor over his paying tributes to the former president.
A DeSantis spokesman Wednesday declined to comment to Newsmax on Haley's ad spot.
Haley's video also says that DeSantis has said that getting "further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia" is not a "vital national" interest, but he later clarified that he backs Ukraine and sees views Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "war criminal."
Haley, former governor of South Carolina, says in her video that her office would "stand with our allies from Israel to Ukraine and stand up to our enemies in Iran and Russia.'
Haley, also a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, began her campaign in February.
DeSantis consistently polls as the second-place GOP candidate, even though he had not declared his race, after Trump. Haley is in fourth place, according to RealClearPolitics polling averages.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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