Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign is taking a page from Regina George, responding to former President Trump’s 2024 advisers’ call for the former South Carolina governor to leave the White House race with a “Mean Girls” meme.
In a memo released Monday by Trump’s campaign, advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles called out Haley for “losing to Donald Trump by every metric used to measure political viability.”
“South Carolina is different than New Hampshire and, as such, poses serious questions about the viability of the Haley campaign,” they said in the memo ahead of the Republican primary in the Palmetto State on Feb. 24.
LaCivita and Wiles accused Haley and her team of “directly aiding and abetting Joe Biden by staying in the race — when even a 10-year-old knows there’s not a path to winning.”
On Tuesday, Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney issued a one-line response to Trump’s camp.
“Then why is Donald Trump so obsessed with us?” Haley’s team asked, including an image of “Mean Girls” villainess George, played by Rachel McAdams, reciting the famed line from the 2004 film.
It’s not the first time lawmakers and candidates have turned to “Mean Girls” to provide some political jabs or get across their messages.
Trump was on the receiving end of some “Mean Girls”-inspired ribbing back in 2016, when then-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, some “fetch advice” for the New York real estate developer-turned-GOP presidential nominee.
“Calling somebody else fat won’t make you any skinner. Calling someone stupid doesn’t make you any smart… All you can do in life is try to solve the problem in front of you,” Lindsay Lohan’s character said in a clip from the movie that McCaskill shared.
In 2022, on Oct. 3 — what’s known as “Mean Girls” day — President Biden tweaked an iconic line from the flick, writing on social media, “Get in, folks. We’re building a better America.”
