Nikki Haley fires back at 'lying' Trump ahead of NH primary: 'American people deserve the truth'

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley joined "Fox & Friends" Friday to respond to former President Trump's attacks on her agenda and criticism she is "too moderate." Trump has repeatedly attacked Haley's positions on Social Security and Medicare leading up to Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.

HALEY TURNS UP THE HEAT ON TRUMP AS SHE TRIES TO CLOSE THE GAP IN THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY

NIKKI HALEY: [Trump's] going out and saying I want to cut Social Security. I've never once said I want to cut Social Security. And everybody's talking about the fact. ‘Is she a conservative?’ I want you – Ainsley, you've known me a long time. How am I not conservative? I was a Tea Party governor. I passed voter ID, I passed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country, I cut taxes, I passed tort reform. We paid down our debt. I went to the U.N., we cut $1 billion. Just because the media says it, because Donald Trump says it, it's wrong. We've got to start telling the truth. And the problem with Donald Trump and Joe Biden is they think if they tell Americans something, that it's the truth. But the problem is both of these guys are lying to the American people, and the American people deserve the truth.

I am not going to do anything that's not going to be tough on the border, because I passed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country. I'm going to be hard on China. And he wasn't hard on China. He praised President Xi a dozen times after China gave us COVID. There are multiple instances that we need to start asking Donald Trump the questions and stop taking what he's saying to be golden, because I've never once said I was going to cut Social Security. But he said he was going to raise the retirement age of Social Security to 70. He proposed a 25 cent gas tax increase on all Americans. He put us $8 trillion in debt in over four years, and our kids will never forgive us for that. 

What I'm telling you is it's not personal with me and Donald Trump. This is about how do we save our country. I don't want my kids to live like this. We don't need to continue to live like this. And what does it say when we've got the media deciding who's a moderate and who's a conservative? Because I'll turn the question back. What have I not done that wasn't conservative? I've been a conservative all my life. Find one thing, no one can mention one thing that says I'm not a conservative. And so, look, I'll tell you that I think it's important that the media be responsible with what we have, but we're going to keep telling the truth. But the fact that Donald Trump's lying, it's another reason why he won't debate me, because he knows I'll call him out on it.

Haley, down by double digits to former President Trump in the latest surveys four days ahead of the New Hampshire GOP primary, has been taking every chance she has to blast the GOP frontrunner.

"You look at Iowa. I mean, President Trump won a state of three million people with 56,000 votes. We had a very low turnout in Iowa. We’re going to have a really good turnout in New Hampshire," Haley told reporters at her first retail stop Friday morning as she pilloried Trump's landslide victory in Monday's Iowa caucuses.

A day earlier at a stop in Hollis, New Hampshire, the former South Carolina governor, who served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration, also blasted the former president for GOP losses at the ballot box in recent election cycles.

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Fox News' Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.