Haley answered Trump: bless your heart

The tweet came in 2016, when Trump was the Republican presidential frontrunner. A South Carolina TV station covered it as a Twitter battle between the two.

Her reply makes no sense as an answer to an insult, and that is where it gets its force. Trump had picked the arena of playground trash talk. Haley declined to meet him there and stepped above it with a non-sequitur.

Listeners have to puzzle over why she would say it, and the most natural reading is that the insult doesn't wound her. She is confident enough in her reputation that she will lose no status by refusing to play.

In the American South, the phrase is more than a wish for continued good health. It can stand in for a two- or three-word phrase that is unprintable, wrapped in diplomatic language.