Biden campaign takes aim at Nikki Haley on education

EXCLUSIVE: The Biden campaign is taking aim at GOP candidate Nikki Haley for the first time Wednesday—slamming her education platform while casting her as a "MAGA Republican" with "no real plan" to improve the nation’s public schools system.

Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is pandering to the "extreme" right.

"Nikki Haley’s education ‘platform’ is just a retread of the same extreme policy points the other Republican candidates are echoing, reminding Americans just how out of touch 2024 Republicans are," Munoz said.

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Munoz said her plan "isn’t a platform for parents, students, or teachers," but instead, "an extreme attempt to appease a right-wing, extremist group that cares about banning books in schools instead of keeping out children safe from gun violence."

"MAGA Republican candidates continue to show they have no real plan to improve our nation’s public schools, address youth mental health, or keep guns out of our schools," Munoz said. "Our students shouldn't be used as political pawns -- they need real leadership and real solutions from their president."

He added, "President Biden is that leader."

This is the first time the Biden campaign is taking on Haley. The comments come before Haley's planned New Hampshire event Wednesday evening with Moms for Liberty.

Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas responded to the Biden campaign's comments, telling Fox News Digital that "Joe Biden knows he's in a world of hurt if Nikki Haley is his opponent. 

"A bold new generation conservative who stands up for parents, children, and taxpayers is Biden and Harris' worst nightmare," Perez-Cubas said. 

Last month, a senior Democratic aide close to the Biden campaign reportedly told Politico, "If they nominate Nikki Haley, we’re in trouble." 

Haley - in an interview on Fox News' "Jesse Waters Primetime" on Wednesday - argued that "that the one person they’re worried about in the Republican primary is Nikki Haley."

And Haley predicted that if she's the GOP presidential nominee, "I would stomp all over Joe Biden."

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Meanwhile, during a joint appearance on "Fox & Friends" earlier in the day Wednesday with Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, Haley said she was "so grateful that Tiffany and Moms for Liberty for the fight that they’re doing to bring this back to the parents because parents have one job and that’s to get this right for their kids. And we have to fight for them to make sure that they get that." 

Justice, responding, highlighted that "this is why so many moms love Nikki Haley. Because she’s standing up as a mom fighting for kids."

Haley, a former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations in former President Trump's administration, is the only mother among the major Republican contenders for the GOP presidential nomination.

"We’re excited to partner with Tiffany Justice and Moms for Liberty. This is a group that many have said are extreme. And I’ve said if this is extreme, count me in because this is about parents getting control of their children again," Haley emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview on Wednesday.

She highlighted: "We don’t want to give custody of our kids to the teachers’ unions. We deserve to know what’s happening in schools, and we should get complete transparency in the classroom. No parent should ever wonder what’s being said or taught to their child in the classroom, and that’s the case right now. And you look at Tiffany and what she’s done with Moms for Liberty. She’s given the voices back to parents. Parents are fighting back."

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Moms for Liberty was founded two years ago amid the coronavirus pandemic as a "social-welfare" nonprofit group, which means it can engage in political and policy activity without disclosing its donors. The group says its mission is to protect parental rights in education, which they describe as "God-given and fundamental."

According to its website, the mission of the group is to "unify, educate and empower parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government." It has fought against mask mandates in schools and has targeted critical race theory. 

The Democratic National Committee has argued that Moms for Liberty is "one of the nation’s most notorious anti-freedom, history-erasing, book-banning groups."

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And hours before the town hall in Manchester, the New Hampshire Democratic Party took aim at both Haley and Moms for Liberty.

"It comes as no surprise that Nikki Haley is debuting her extreme education agenda standing shoulder to shoulder with an anti-freedom group hellbent on erasing history and banning books across the country. Haley has been all for attacking public education and pushing toxic culture wars throughout her career, even railing against providing more education funding for South Carolina schools as governor," NHDP spokesperson Aida Ross charged.