Nikki Haley attempted to clarify her comments in a local radio interview (File)
US presidential candidate Nikki Haley faced a barrage of criticism on Thursday after failing to mention slavery as the cause of the US Civil War at a campaign event when asked what led to the conflict.
Less than three weeks before voting begins in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, it was the first major stumble for a candidate whose campaign has seen her go from unlikely outsider to front-runner Donald Trump's biggest threat.
The former U.N. ambassador told a town hall crowd in Berlin, New Hampshire, on Wednesday that the cause of the bloody war of 1861-1865 was “essentially how the government was going to function” and “freedoms and what people could and could not do.” doing.”
She added that “it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are.”
Apparently caught off guard, she turned the debate back to the questioner, who responded that he was not the one running for president, and that it was “amazing” that slavery had not come up in her response.
Scholars agree that slavery was the main driver of the Civil War, and Nikki Haley's embezzlement led to swift rebuttals.
“It was about slavery,” President Joe Biden said, responding on social media to video footage of the town hall.
It was about slavery. https://t.co/q9bTDvtPne
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 28, 2023
Nikki Haley, 51, attempted to clarify her comments in a local radio interview Thursday in New Hampshire, confirming that “of course the Civil War was about slavery, that's the easy part.”
She accused the town hall questioner — who declined to identify himself to reporters — of being a “Democratic plant” sent to damage her campaign and boost Trump, who is projected to be a weaker candidate in the general election considered against Biden.
'Embarrassing'
Trump has a more than 20-point lead in the polls for the Jan. 23 primary in New Hampshire, but Nikki Haley is gaining ground and overtaking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the biggest threat to the former president.
DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo called Nikki Haley's clarification “embarrassing.”
“If she can't answer a question as basic as the cause of the civil war, what does she think will happen to her in the general election? The Democrats would eat her lunch,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The governor of Florida, who is trailing Trump in the national primaries, has sparked controversy in his own state over teaching race, a delicate issue that divides Americans.
And Trump himself has been blasted on both sides of the political divide, accused of echoing Adolf Hitler over comments about undocumented immigrants “poisoning the blood” of the nation.
Nikki Haley, who has a history of controversy over America's Confederate past, raised eyebrows over her views on the Civil War during her successful run for governor of South Carolina in 2010.
She characterized the conflict as a battle between “tradition” and “change” and told a private meeting of confederal heritage groups that there were “passions on different sides.”
She won praise in 2015 when she signed legislation removing the Confederate flag from the State House after a white supremacist killed nine people at a Charleston church.
But she had promised during her election campaign to keep the flag flying, arguing that “every state has different circumstances and every state has certain things that they consider part of their heritage.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said her final comments while in office were “not stunning” to all Black residents of South Carolina.
“Some may have forgotten, but I haven't. Time to take off the rose-colored Nikki Haley glasses, folks,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
