Nikki Haley Backtracks on Civil War Gaffe: “Yes, I Know It Was About Slavery”

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley retreated on Thursday from an answer she gave during a presidential town hall in New Hampshire a day earlier, in which she did not mention slavery when asked about the cause of the US Civil War.

“Of course, the Civil War was about slavery, that’s the easy part,” Haley said on Pulse of New Hampshire, a radio show. The former UN ambassador, who removed the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse in 2015, said, “Yes, I know it was about slavery. I am from the South.”

But it wasn’t easy on Wednesday, when Haley gave a stumbling, evasive answer to the question, arguing that the issue “comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are.”

After her questioner said it was “astonishing” that her answer did not include the word “slavery,” Haley replied, “What do you want me to say about slavery?” Then, she quickly moved on to another question.

“I want to nip it in the bud. Yes, we know the Civil War was about slavery,” Haley said Thursday. “But more than that, what’s the lesson in all this? That freedom matters. And individual rights and liberties matter for all people. That’s the blessing of America. That was a stain on America when we had slavery.”

In her radio interview, Haley argued that the questioner was “definitely a Democrat plant” and accused the Joe Biden campaign of sending people to her town halls to sabotage her campaign and ensure that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee.

The Biden campaign quickly seized on the Wednesday gaffe, and Biden himself replied to Haley’s answer in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “It was about slavery,” the president wrote.

“I am disgusted, but I’m not surprised — this is what Black South Carolinians have come to expect from Nikki Haley, and now the rest of the country is getting to see her for who she is,” Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.

Ron DeSantis’s campaign also posted a video of Haley’s response, adding the comment, “Yikes.” The Florida governor, who faced criticism from some Black Republicans last summer when his state’s new history standards included a line about slaves developing skills from enslavement, said in a press conference Thursday that it was “not that difficult to identify and acknowledge the role slavery played in the Civil War.” 

Haley is now nearly tied with DeSantis for second place in national polling, and has leapfrogged him in New Hampshire, where, according to a recent poll, she has closed to within 4 points of  Trump. Haley is hoping to peel off some of the state’s more moderate Republicans and independents, who are allowed to vote in the state’s January 23 primary.

But the gaffe underscores both the difficulties she faces in still appealing to a largely Trumpified GOP electorate, as well as her own checkered record on the subjects of slavery and racism. 

Haley frequently touts her decision as governor to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse following the white supremacist shooting of 9 Black parishioners in South Carolina. But she has also frequently spoken about the flag as a symbol of Southern “heritage,” and has downplayed the existence of racism in other ways.

Christale Spain, the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, called Haley’s comments “vile, but unsurprising,” adding, “The same person who refused to take down the Confederate Flag until the tragedy in Charleston, and tried to justify a Confederate History Month. She’s just as MAGA as Trump.”