“Birdbrain”? That’s the best Trump could do for Nikki Haley?

Say what you will about the Donald’s third run at the presidency, but the guy’s losing his once-fearsome nicknaming powers. 

“Low Energy Jeb” Bush was an instant classic, and cruelly accurate about Bush’s limp public persona. (Remember “please clap”?)

“Crooked Hillary”? Darn right.  

She engaged in enough document shenanigans to make even Trump blush and helped set up a primo influence-peddling shop, the Clinton Foundation, that would be the envy of La Famiglia Biden.

Sure, we first saw decline with Trump’s lame “Meatball Ron” and tin-eared “DeSanctimonious” jabs at Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

But the peeved-gramma tone of birdbrain proves he’s slipping. 

Haley is anything but: calm and effective, with a sound grasp of policy.

She was at least arguably the winner of this first two GOP debates, no easy task for a woman dealing with a pack of shouting men.

That’s why the more GOP voters see of her, the more they like her.

To make matters worse, Trump and his team were so proud of themselves that like schoolkids they came up with a harebrained plan to send a birdcage and some bird food to Haley’s hotel room door in the middle of the night.

Haley’s campaign response was dead-on: “weird, creepy and desperate.”