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GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s Wednesday night gaffe where she neglected to name “slavery” as a cause of the Civil War is “worse” given that she removed the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol during her time as governor.
At a campaign event in New Hampshire, Haley was asked by a voter identified only as “Patrick” by CBS News, what the cause of the Civil War was.
“Well, don’t come with an easy question,” Haley said. “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?”
Patrick declined to answer as he wasn’t a candidate, and Haley continued.
“I think it always comes down to the role of government, and what the rights of the people are,” Haley said. “And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life.”
Patrick then asked why she hadn’t said “slavery” in her answer, and she replied “What do you want me to say about slavery?”
On Thursday, Haley clarified her recent comments on a local radio interview, saying “Yes, I know it was about slavery.”
“I’m from the South, of course, you know it’s about slavery,” she continued, according to USA Today.
She then suggested Patrick was “definitely a Democrat plant.”
“That’s why I said ‘What does it mean to you?’ And if you notice, he didn’t answer anything,” Haley added. “We see these guys when they come in, we know what they’re doing.”
But the original gaffe quickly went viral, with many mocking Haley for declining to mention slavery. President Joe Biden even weighed in on X, formerly Twitter, posting the video clip with a four-word comment.
“It was about slavery,” the president wrote.
It was about slavery. https://t.co/q9bTDvtPne
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 28, 2023
But Lincoln Project cofounder George Conway had perhaps the harshest comment, given that he’s a fellow Republican. His comment came in response to a tweet from Commentary editor John Podhoretz.
“Does anyone truly believe that the child of Indian immigrants to the United States, who took down the Confederate flag flying over her state capital, is a pro-slavery racist? I say this fully knowing it was a dreadful answer and that dreadful answers sometimes tank campaigns,” Podhoretz asked.
“She’s not. That’s what makes it worse. She’s knowingly pandering to a base base,” Conway quote-tweeted.
She’s not. That’s what makes it worse. She’s knowingly pandering to a base base. https://t.co/TFNsZ4QTwQ
— George Conway (gtconway3 on Threads—try it!) (@gtconway3d) December 28, 2023
Podhoretz is correct that Haley removed the Confederate flag at the South Carolina capitol building. The flag was first flown at the capitol after the Civil War in 1961, according to Time. Historians said the flag was initially flown as a symbol of defiance to the civil rights movement, the magazine reported.
Then-Governor Haley ordered the flag to be taken down in 2015, following the Charleston mass shooting where nine Black people were killed by a white supremacist at the Mother Emanuel AME Church.
In 2010, five years before the removal of the flag, she defended Confederate History Month and the flag in an interview with The Palmetto Patriots, according to CNN. The group describes themselves as fighting “attacks against Southern Culture.” At the time, she denied that the flag was racist, and said that the flag should be flown at the capitol as a “compromise of all people, that everybody should accept a part of South Carolina.”
She changed her opinion after attending the funerals of those killed in the shooting, telling CNN that though “there is a place for that flag,” that place was a history museum, “not in a place that represents all people in South Carolina.”
“It should have never been there,” she said.
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