In a bizarre moment at a New Hampshire rally, Donald Trump blamed his Republican rival, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, for the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol -- a false charge he has often made against former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).\

““Look at all the people back there — you got a lot of people. This is supposed to be a quaint little area. This is not quaint at all,” Trump told a crowd of supporters in Concord, N.H., remarking about the crowd size, adding later: “You know when [Haley] comes here she gets like nine people, and the press never reports the crowds you know.”

Trump continued, turning to lies he has often uttered to deflect his own responsibility for the Capitol insurrection -- except that he usually attacks Pelosi, not Haley. “By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know, they — do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it,” he said. “Because of lots of things … like Nikki Haley was in charge of security — we offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”

The crowd of Trump supporters in Concord reportedly fell silent as he ranted about Haley. His remarks were entirely false, as noted by The Hill among other outlets:

“On January 6, the Speaker, a target of an assassination attempt that day, was no more in charge of Capitol security than Mitch McConnell was,” then-Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill explained to The Associated Press in July 2021. “This is a clear attempt to whitewash what happened on Jan. 6th and divert blame."

The National Guard isn’t directed by the House Speaker.

Footage played during one of the hearings conducted by the House select committee investigation the Jan. 6 insurrection also showed Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaking with Cabinet members and governors regarding the Capitol attack."

The Biden-Harris campaign swiftly posted a mocking reference to Trump's mental stumble on X: “A deeply confused Trump confuses Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley multiple times: Nikki Haley was in charge on January 6. They don’t want to talk about that.”