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Republican primary candidate Nikki Haley said it was time for America’s older political leaders in both political parties to “step away” as the former US ambassador steps up her attacks on US gerontocracy to boost her bid for the White House in 2024.
Speaking on Sunday after Mitch McConnell, the Republican senate leader, had a health scare last week, appearing to freeze while speaking to reporters for a second time in as many months, Haley said seniors in high political office “need to let a younger generation take over”.
“We want to go and start working for our kids to make sure we have a strong national security, to make sure we have a stronger economic policy, to make sure that America is safe. And we can’t do that if these individuals refuse to give up power,” Haley told CBS in an interview.
“I want this for Republicans and Democrats. I want to make sure that they all know it’s time to go . . . they’ve got to know that, look, we appreciate your service, but it’s time to step away.”
Haley, who is 51, had already made criticism of older politicians an important feature of her message to voters, saying that a vote for US president Joe Biden, who is 80, was equivalent to a ballot for vice-president Kamala Harris, and calling for term limits and cognitive tests for powerful politicians.
After McConnell’s latest freezing incident, Haley blasted the Senate as the “most privileged nursing home in the country”.
Haley’s comments came after the former South Carolina governor’s bid for the Republican White House nomination gained some traction following a strong performance in the party’s first televised debate last month.
According to the 538.com polling average, Haley is running in fourth place nationally among Republican primary voters, having recently gained ground over both Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech investor.
While former president Donald Trump, 77, remains the overwhelming frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Haley was adamant that his legal woes would make it hard for him to win.
“He’s innocent until proven guilty but . . . the American people are not going to vote for a convicted criminal. The American people are going to vote for someone who can win a general election. I have faith in the American people. They know what they need to do,” she said.
The physician of the US Capitol on Thursday cleared McConnell, who is 81, to return to work, saying “occasional lightheadedness” was “not uncommon” for people who were recovering from a concussion, and that dehydration may also have been a factor in his latest incident.
But Haley said the health concerns of ageing politicians in Washington were becoming too widespread to be ignored.
“We can’t stand watching Dianne Feinstein [the 90-year-old California senator] sit there and be told by an aide how she should vote. We can’t worry about Mitch McConnell being frozen at a podium. We can’t have Joe Biden forget where he is,” Haley said.
“Our enemies are watching all of this. And every time they have an instance like that, America is less safe because our enemies think we’re out of control,” she added.