Former Trump UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, fighting with Gov. Ron DeSantis for the number two ranking in the 2024 GOP presidential race, continues to stumble over her damaging remarks last week, after she refused to say “slavery” when asked, “what was the cause of the United States’ Civil War?”
“I want to visit this because it’s going to continue to come up,” Fox News host Harris Faulkner told the former South Carolina governor late Wednesday morning. “And the reason that it has is maybe you haven’t put it to bed yet.”
“So in Politico today there’s being written about Black conservatives and some of their responses,” Faulkner continued. “Conservative talk show host Armstrong Williams says you are and going to move on from this. But in the meanwhile, he called it a ‘teachable moment.’ And I would ask, what have you learned?”
“Well, first of all,” Haley began, “I will tell you this that I said right off the bat, I did respond to it right away. When you grow up in the South you grow up and slavery is a constant comment, constant point of discussion. You learn it in school, you talk about it.”
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“The South is actually very comfortable with our history,” Haley added, a comment that appeared to immediately raise eyebrows.
“What I should have said immediately was that the Civil War was about slavery. But I just assumed that that was a given. And I went on and said, it was also about the role of government, and about the rights of people economically, socially and otherwise. So yes, we know the Civil War was about slavery. That’s always the case.”
Last week Haley was asked by a voter at a town hall this question: “What was the cause of the United States’ Civil War?”
Her response has led to a week-long uproar.
“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,” was Haley’s immediate reply. “I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. 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.”
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When the voter followed up, saying it was “astonishing” that in 2023 she could answer his question “without mentioning the word ‘slavery,'” Haley brushed him off.
“What do you want me to say about slavery?” she replied quizzically.
On Wednesday, Haley went on to tell the Fox News host, “Harris, really, the media is the only one that has talked about this issue.”
Faulkner refused to accept that claim: “No, that’s actually not true,” she strongly pushed back.
Watch a clip from the Fox News interview below, and video of Haley’s original remarks when asked what the cause of the Civil War was above, or both at this link.
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