Nikki Haley Botches Caitlin Clark Shoutout While Campaigning in Iowa

It's been an eventful week for Nikki Haley as she tries to gain ground on Donald Trump with the calendar flipping over to an election year. She was stumped by the ol' gotcha question of what caused the Civil War during a town hall meeting, kicking off a multi-day news cycle. With that finally calming down a bit, she was in Iowa yesterday trying to drum up interest in her presidential campaign and attempted to play to the crowd by shouting out Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark. Easy enough, right? Well, not when CNN political reporter Kaitlin Collins is on your mind.

The line was not a huge hit with the crowd, who mostly remained silent. One guy looked at his companion like Jim Halpert checking in with the camera on The Office. And these are presumably the people most interested in hearing what Haley has to say and to give her the benefit of the doubt. Outside of, like, dispariging the loose meat sandwich, botching Clark's name at the peak of her popularity is about the worst thing a person can do in Iowa.

This is obviously a non-issue but it's funny. Even funnier when you realize Trump would have gotten a huge laugh or cheer or whatever had he said the same thing. Just goes to show the mountain all his competitors must climb.