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Nikki Haley, tenuously holding on to her hard-fought second place position in the Republican presidential primary, continues to defend her claim that America “has never been a racist country,” which has been her defense after she refused three weeks ago to say “slavery” when asked, “What was the cause of the United States’ Civil War?”
At CNN’s town hall at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire Thursday night, Haley cemented position: America is not and has never been a racist country, it was not founded on racism, nor was the intent of the founders to create a racist nation.
CNN’s Jake Tapper challenged her whitewashing of American history.
“Just to push back because I was a history major. In New Hampshire,” Tapper told the former Trump UN Ambassador and South Carolina Republican governor. “You’re talking about the ideals of America. But America was founded institutionally on many racist precepts, including slavery.”
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Haley refused to budge.
“But when you look, it said ‘all men are created equal,’” the ambassador told Tapper, referring to America’s Declaration of Independence.
The Biden re-election campaign was quick to post that short clip online.
Tapper: Just to push back because I was a history major. America was founded institutionally on many racist precepts including slavery
Haley: But when you look, it said all men are created equal pic.twitter.com/BdqFyLJD1X
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 19, 2024
That was just one small part of Haley defending her position.
Reminding Haley that she had said, “America has never been a racist country,” Tapper countered by explaining, as Mediaite reported, “Protections for the institution of slavery were written into the U.S. Constitution. The White House was built with slave labor. Your home state of South Carolina seceded from the Union, fought a war to defend the enslavement of Black people. I understand you don’t think America is racist country now, but we’re here at a college. Do you really think, as a historical matter, America has never been a racist country?”
Attempting to defend her position, Haley replied, “I mean, think about – first of all, I will tell you, when you look at, you know, the Declaration of Independence, it was that, you know, ‘men are created equal,’ with unalienable rights, right?” she said, leaving out the “all.”
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“That was what we all knew. But what I look at it as is, I was a brown girl that grew up in a small, rural town. We had plenty of racism that we had to deal with. But my parents never said we lived in a racist country, and I’m so thankful they didn’t. Because for every brown and Black child out there, if you tell them they live or [were] born in a racist country, you’re immediately telling them they don’t have a chance. And my parents would always say, you may have challenges. And yes, there will be people who are racist, but that doesn’t define what you can do in this country.”
“And so I think it’s important that we tell all kids that, look, America is not perfect. We have our stains. We know that. But our goal should always be to make today better than yesterday. It’s hugely important. And that’s the problem I have is, we have too many people with this national self-loathing. It is killing our country. We have got to go back to loving America. We are blessed, because that little brown girl in that small rural town in South Carolina? She grew up to become the first female, minority governor in history. She then went on to be UN Ambassador, and now she’s running for president of the United States.”
She continued, saying, “I want every brown and Black child to see that and say, ‘no, I don’t live in a country that was formed on racism. I live in a country where they wanted all people to be equal and to make sure that they have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’”
The town hall audience applauded.
That’s when Tapper again challenged her whitewashing of U.S. history.
Undeterred, Haley stuck to her position.
“But when you look, it said ‘all men are created equal.’ I think the intent, the intent was to do the right thing. Now, did they have to go fix it along the way? Yes. But I don’t think the intent was ever that we were going to be a racist country. The intent was everybody was going to be created equally. And as we went through time, they fixed the things that were not ‘all men are created equal.’ They made sure women became equal too, all of these things happened over time.”
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And she continued, referring to racism as just a part of “our little kinks.”
“I refuse to believe that the premise of when they formed our country was based on the fact that it was a racist country to start with,” Haley told Tapper. “I refuse to believe that. I have to know, in my heart and in everybody’s heart that we live in the best country in the world, and we are a work in progress, and we’ve got a long way to go to fix all of our little kinks. But I truly believe our founding fathers had the best of intentions when they started, and we fixed it along the way, and we should always look at it that way.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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