Nikki Haley says military families can't trust Trump to 'keep them out of harm's way'

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley dug in Tuesday on her criticism of former President Donald Trump as unfit to hold the office again, arguing in an interview with NBC News' Craig Melvin that Trump can't be trusted to protect America's military.

Against the backdrop of Trump's escalating attacks on her husband, who is serving overseas in the South Carolina Army National Guard, as well as his recent comments about NATO, Haley said those comments should make military families question whether Trump can be an effective commander in chief again.

“If you don’t know the value of our men and women in uniform, if you don’t know the sacrifice that they go through, why should I — as a military spouse and all our military families — trust you to know that you’re going to keep them out of harm’s way?" Haley said in the interview.

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The interview will air on NBC's "TODAY" show on Wednesday morning. An excerpt aired Tuesday night on "NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt."

Haley has been criticizing Trump's conduct, record and positions more and more as the GOP nominating fight continues, with Trump looking to vanquish his final big-name rival and Haley trying to convince her party she can mount a comeback victory.

At a rally over the weekend, Trump told supporters he'd "encourage" Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" to a NATO ally that didn't pay enough to bolster the treaty organization's defense commitments. The comments drew outrage from Democrats and some corners of the Republican Party, but prominent Republicans defended Trump, too, including Marco Rubio of Florida, the top GOP member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Jason Miller, a top Trump adviser, responded to the criticism over the weekend in a statement to NBC News, arguing that “Democrat and media pearl-clutchers seem to have forgotten that we had four years of peace and prosperity under President Trump.”

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Republican voters on why they're backing Haley over Trump

02:39

Haley on Tuesday framed Trump's NATO comments as taking the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that she doesn't believe Trump knows what military families go through.

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"If you are saying you were going to side with Putin, then I know it’s going to cause a war, not stop a war," she said in the interview. "Why would any military family feel like you could go and keep our men and women protected? Because you can’t.”

She added, "The reality is — he’s never been anywhere near military uniform. He’s never had to sleep on the ground. He’s never known how to sacrifice. And the most harm he’s ever possibly had is getting hit by a golf ball when he's sitting in a golf cart. That’s the truth."