AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall; Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
- GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley flubbed Caitlin Clark's name during an Iowa tailgate event.
- While speaking to the crowd, Haley instead said the name of the CNN anchor Kaitlin Collins.
- "I can assure you her free-throw percentage is much better than mine," Collins joked on X.
During a Saturday tailgate event in Iowa, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley sung the praises of Iowa Hawkeyes basketball sensation Caitlin Clark, who over the past year has become one of the highest-profile female athletes in the country.
But as Haley spoke to the crowd ahead of the Hawkeyes women's basketball game, she seemingly mixed up Clark's name, instead naming CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins.
"We're excited to see the Lady Hawkeyes team," Haley said. "What a great coach they have. Kaitlan Collins is phenomenal."
Collins, a onetime White House correspondent, is now the anchor of the CNN program "The Source."
The journalist responded to the apparent mixup with a quip about her own basketball skills.
"I can assure you her free-throw percentage is much better than mine," Collins said of the phenom Clark.
(The No. 4 Hawkeyes went on to defeat the Minnesota Golden Gophers 94-71 in Saturday's game, with Clark scoring 35 points.)
It didn't take long for Ron DeSantis' team to pounce on Haley's hoops gaffe.
"After making a fool of herself in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley just landed in Iowa and confused an Iowa basketball star with a CNN anchor," the DeSantis War Room wrote on X.
Haley's mixup came at the end of a tough week for the presidential aspirant.
On Wednesday, Haley received a torrent of criticism for her response to a question about the Civil War while on the campaign trail.
In pointing to a cause for the Civil War, Haley stated that the conflict was "basically about how the government is run, the freedoms and what people could and couldn't do."
The audience member who posed the question said it was "astonishing" that Haley had not explicitly used the word "slavery," which prompted her to reply: "What do you want me to say about slavery?"
Haley later sought to add context to her comments amid the sustained backlash.
"Of course, the Civil War was about slavery," Haley said on Pulse of New Hampshire, a radio show, last week.
"We know that. That's the easy part of it," she continued. "What I was saying was what does it mean to us today? What it means to us today is about freedom."
Haley had seen her support among GOP voters rising in recent weeks as she tries to position herself as the top alternative to former President Donald Trump.
The former UN ambassador has become the preferred candidate of many of the country's top business leaders, but despite her higher standing in the race, Trump still dominates the GOP field. The former president boasts robust leads in early-voting Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as in South Carolina, where Haley served as governor from 2011 to 2017.
And the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15, 2024, are quickly approaching.