- Nikki Haley gave Donald Trump some blunt advice to improve his standing among women.
- Haley told Trump to stop insulting Kamala Harris "intelligence" and "looks."
- "Republican win get their backs up too," Haley said to how conservative women view those attacks.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on Monday begged former President Donald Trump not to resort to personal attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, arguing such tactics continue to hurt his standing among women.
"You don't need to call Kamala dumb, she didn't get this far, you know, just by accident," Haley told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade during an interview on the network's "Fox and Friends." "She's here, that's what it is. She's a prosecutor. You don't need to go and talk about intelligence or looks or anything else — just focus on the policies."
Haley cautioned that even conservative women don't like those attacks.
"When you call even a Democrat woman dumb, Republican women get their backs up too," she said.
Trump's treatment of Harris has dovetailed with his long history of attacking political foes in particularly personal ways. He has also tended to go after female foes by attacking their looks and intelligence. He recently promoted a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, that made a crude joke about Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and oral sex. Trump also questioned if Harris was truly Black, a remark that even some of his fellow Republicans conceded was unhelpful.
Haley reiterated her full-throated endorsement of Trump, which she delivered at the Republican National Convention. She also repeated that she has offered to campaign with the former president, but it's ultimately up to him how involved his former primary foe will be in his 2024 race.
Trump tore into Haley when she remained the last major primary challenger, even questioning why her husband, Michael Haley, who was deployed overseas, was not on the campaign trail. Haley left Trump's Cabinet on relatively good terms, but she was harshly critical of his age and standing during her GOP primary campaign.
Polls have long shown that Trump struggles to appeal to female voters. He's often been able to cover up this shortfall by boasting his numbers among men. A New York Times-Siena College poll published on Sunday showed Trump with a narrow national lead even as Harris led him by 11 percentage points among female likely voters.
Kilmeade asked Haley about former Congresswoman Liz Cheney's criticism of her support of Trump. Cheney, once the No. 3 House Republican, has turned against much of the party after voters and top officials made it clear they would not abandon the former president. Cheney and former Vice President Dick Cheney, her father, have argued that Republicans should support Harris because Trump is a fundamental threat to the US Constitution.
"If you don't like him, say you don't like him, but you can't say that his policies are worse than Kamala Harris', that's just not a fact," Haley said.
A representative for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
