Jimmy Kimmel pleaded with Nikki Haley to let Donald Trump take a mental competency test after the former president claimed he would come out on top against his Republican rival.
The former president won the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, yet Ms Haley has vowed to plough ahead with the race as “she still has literally dozens of states to lose,” the host joked on his late night show on Wednesday night.
Mr Kimmel offered Ms Haley some career advice, telling her that she still win on some form if she agrees to take a mental competency test together with her opponent.
Speaking after her New Hampshire loss, Ms Haley told supporters that Mr Trump had claimed he would do better in a mental competency test than her.
Ms Haley said that, if he thinks that, he should have no issue standing with her on a debate stage.
Mr Kimmel played the clip on his show, chiming in: “Hold on, I’m gonna stop you right there because you are missing the point, Nikki. He said he would crush you in a mental competency test; all you need to do is say okay!”
“No one wants to watch you debate him. We wanna see him take this test we want to watch Donald Trump sitting with paper and a number two pencil, trying to figure out which one is a rectangle and which is a square,” the late-night show host joked.
“That’s what we want,” he continued. “Why is it so difficult to understand? You wanna win, or [do] you want to finish second 54 more times in a row?”
Questions are growing over Mr Trump’s mental competency following a series of blunders during his campaign trail.
On stage at a New Hampshire rally, Mr Trump appeared not to be able to pronounce the word “climate” calling it “clime”.
At the same event, he claimed he “aced” a recent cognitive test.
What really grasped the attention of his Republican rival Ms Haley, however, was when he seemingly confused her with Nancy Pelosi, claiming she was in charge of security during the January 6 Capitol riot.
“Nikki Haley is in charge of security,” Mr Trump said at a rally on Friday. “We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down.”
Ms Haley hit back at his comments on Saturday, saying she was never even in Washington DC on January 6 2021 and that he had muddled her for Ms Pelosi.
“We can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this,” she said.
She brought the matter up again after she lost the New Hampshire primary to Mr Trump on Tuesday.
“Now I’ve long called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75,” she said.
While Mr Kimmel holds out hope for a mental competency test showdown between the Republican rivals, he pointed out that Mr Trump is leading Ms Haley in more ways than one.
“He beat Nikki Haley by double digits; he’s also leading Nikki Haley by felony charges 91 to zero,” he joked, pointing to the former president’s string of criminal cases.
