MTG dismisses newly announced presidential candidate Nikki Haley as simply George Bush 'in heels'

• Marjorie Taylor Greene dismissed presidential hopeful Nikki Haley as "Bush in heels."
• Haley announced her bid for the 2024 presidency on Tuesday, and Trump allies have gone after her.

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene reacted dismissively to the presidential candidacy of Nikki Haley, saying the former UN ambasssador would be like a "Bush in heels."

Haley is just the second Republican to announce a run for the presidency in 2024, and the first to challenge former President Donald Trump.

Haley's campaign announcement on Tuesday called for voters to move on from the "stale ideas and faded names of the past," in a video that dwelt mainly on her time as South Carolina's governor.

The video made remarkably little of her two years working for the Trump administration.

On her personal Twitter account on Wednesday, Greene waved Haley off as "just another George (or Jeb!) Bush."

She added: "If we wanted a "Bush in heels," Republicans would vote for Liz Cheney," a reference to the former GOP lawmaker who has vocally held Trump to account over the Capitol riot.

Greene also criticized Haley for what she described as a "weak" stance on the Southern border, and her 2016 refusal to support an anti-trans bathroom bill.

The "heels" reference was not pulled out of thin air, with Haley having triumphantly referred to them in the closing moments of her video.

"You should know this about me, I don't put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you're wearing heels," she said.

Greene's reference to Cheney and the Bush dynasty likely aimed to place Haley squarely in a now-distant, pre-Trump era of the Republican Party.

It also suggests that fealty to Trump-style politics remains a powerful factor even for those who plan to oppose him on the campaign trail.

While Greene has only intensified her fervent pro-Trump stance in recent months, Haley's relationship to the former president — and the modern-day MAGA-styled party he birthed — is more complex.

Haley has changed her stance on numerous issues spanning the Trump era, not least with her rapid transformation from never-Trumper to avid supporter in the relatively short span of his 2016 campaign.

Despite initially criticizing Trump over the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, by October of that year she was saying he was needed in the party, adding: "I don't want us to go back to the days before Trump."