Trump supporters focus on Nikki Haley at event in Conway

CONWAY, S.C. (WBTW) — Supporters of former President Donald Trump came to Conway Thursday afternoon where they focused on former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s record on China.

Reps. Russell Fry and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, state Reps. Case Brittain and Val Guest and several other Trump supporters attended the event. Many waved signs and wore “Make America Great Again” hats and chanted loudly for Trump.

Guest talked briefly about Trump’s achievements and allegations of 2020 election fraud.

“Look at what Donald Trump did for four years before he didn’t win the last election,” Guest said.

Guest added that many South Carolina elected officials who worked with Haley while she served as governor from 2011 to 2017 do not support her run for president. Haley, a former U.N. ambassador to the United Nations, is challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“They’re not backing her, and there’s a reason for that,” Guest said. “She’s more worried about Nikki than she is the U.S. She is going to take this country somewhere we don’t want to go and we’re already there.”

Mace criticized previous comments from Haley about how workers in China could show Americans how to work. She also said Haley is China’s “favorite governor.”

Mace told News13 that if Trump is elected president again, she’d like to see him change one thing.

“The first thing we got to do when Donald Trump is president is take the southern border seriously again like he did as president of the United States,” Mace said. “He started the wall, and it’ll be time to finish the wall.”

Fry talked about the current border crisis and inflation under the Biden administration. He said Fry America cannot be close with China after last year’s incident in which a spy ballon floated across the country before being shot down by the U.S. military off the coast of Myrtle Beach.

“It’s been a year since that happened and we still don’t know from this administration what they were doing, why they were here, the things that they used in the spy balloon,” Fry said. “We already have one administration who’s been soft on China, and we don’t need another one.”

Haley visited Conway on Sunday and told supporters the race is far from over and that she plans to stay in the race.

The South Carolina Democratic presidential primary is on Saturday. The state’s GOP primary is on Feb. 24.

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Adrianna Lawrence is a multimedia journalist at News13. Adrianna is originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and joined the News13 team in June 2023 after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2023. Keep up with Adrianna on Instagram, Facebook, and X, formerly Twitter. You can also read more of her work, here.

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