DON’T get your knickers in a knot. I am still on the Trump Train. Woo Woo! I am blowing the whistle in the engine. Forgive me is I occasionally have to take the mickey out of Trump for being foolish. Yes, I said “foo-lish”. To bring up Nikki Haley and birtherism and past, alleged, affairs is a really stupid move. Punching down when it is totally unnecessar is foolish, especially when it comes to birtherism and affairs. Let’s talk.

Nikki Haley held her own in her “debate” with Ron DeSantis and even advertised her Ron website: DeSantisLies.com. She is moving up with lots of GOP Corporate and Democrat donor money. Importantly, the Electoral College doesn’t care where your money came from. A win is a win.

Her move-up means she is back in Donald Trump’s sites. Foolish Trump dinged Haley for the fact that her parents were not U.S. citizens when the Bamberg, South Carolina native was born. Donald then alluded to possible, alleged affairs the former South Carolina Governor may have had. Sweet Jesus, that’s foolish. The Washington Examiner noticed:

But before Iowa‘s caucuses on Jan. 15, the Republican Party’s opening nominating contest, and New Hampshire’s Jan. 23 primary, he is not stopping there, now stoking incorrect speculation she cannot be president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born and helping the spread of old rumors about her marriage, first raised during her 2010 South Carolina gubernatorial campaign.

Trump resurrected the birther conspiracies this week in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, after spending last weekend undercutting Haley in Clinton, Mason City, Newton, and Sioux Center for being weak on immigration while describing her as a “globalist” who “likes the globe” — in addition to mocking “Barack Hussein Obama.”

Then, in Newton, he escalated his criticism, specifically mentioning Haley’s marriage in an off-teleprompter moment during a two-hour speech as he predicted she and DeSantis would also experience political indictments if they are elected president, as he claims he currently is.

“The same thing that happened to me is going to happen to them,” Trump said. “She’s going to get indicted because they’ll say she was having an affair or something, you know. It doesn’t mean it’s lying,” he added.

THE ALLEGED AFFAIRS

I am going to be down and dirty on this because I don’t care. What happens in someone else’s marriage is none of your damn business. Isn’t that what we learned from L’affaire Lewinsky? These rumors were all vetted before Haley became Governor of South Carolina AND before Trump brought her into his Administration as United Nations Ambassador. I wouldn’t dignify them now by discussing them. The End. Dearest Mr. Trump: People in glass houses…

THE BIRTHER ISSUE

Bringing birther back, Donald Trump questions Nikki Haley's right to be president, citing parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born: https://t.co/IpGXCcy2lh

— South Carolina Public Radio (@SCPublicRadio) January 10, 2024

This move is foolish, too. Let’s not worry about Nikki Haley’s birth. Let’s talk about Mary Anne MacLeod Trump and her birth.

The details about our lovely Scottish lass from Wikipedia:

Arriving in the U.S. with $50 (equivalent to $887 in 2022), MacLeod lived with her older sister Christina Matheson on Long Island and worked as a domestic servant for at least four years.[1][6][7] One of these jobs appears to have been as a nanny for a well-to-do family in a New York suburb, but the position was eliminated due to economic difficulties caused by the Great Depression.[8] As a 2016 account in Scottish newspaper The National put it, she “started life in America as a dirt-poor servant escaping the even worse poverty of her native land.”[6] Having obtained a U.S. Re-entry Permit—only granted to immigrants intending to stay and gain citizenship[6][7]—she returned to Scotland on the SS Cameronia on September 12, 1934.[13] She was recorded as living in New York by April 1935 in the 1940 U.S. Census.[13]

Though the 1940 census form filed by Mary Anne and her husband, Fred Trump, stated that she was a naturalized citizen, she did not actually become one until March 10, 1942.[1][6][7] However, there is no evidence that she violated any immigration laws prior to her naturalization, as she frequently traveled internationally and was afterwards able to re-enter the U.S.[14] MacLeod returned to her home area in Scotland often during the course of her life and spoke Gaelic when she did.[8]

At least 3 of her children were born before her citizenship. Donald was born in 1946, well after her citizenship. But, that’s not the point. Both Trump and Haley are children of legal immigrants and residents, born in the United States.

Don’t be foolish, Donald. Let it go. Glass houses and stones.

Featured Composite: Gage Skidmore/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons/Gage Skidmore/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons