US presidential candidate Nikki Haley faced a storm of criticism on Thursday after she failed to mention slavery as a cause of the US Civil War when asked what led to the conflict at an event campaign.
Less than three weeks before voting begins for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential nomination, it is the first major setback for a candidate whose campaign propelled her from unlikely outsider status to the biggest threat to Donald Trump.
The former U.N. ambassador told a town hall in Berlin, New Hampshire, on Wednesday that the cause of the bloody 1861-1865 war was “essentially the way the government was going to operate” and “the freedoms and what people could and could not do. “
She added that “it always depends on the role of government and the rights of the people.”
Apparently taken by surprise, she referred the question to the interrogator, who responded that he was not the one running for president and that it was “astonishing” that slavery was not addressed in his answer.
Scholars agree that slavery was the primary driver of the Civil War, and Haley’s obfuscation has drawn swift rebuttals.
“This was about slavery,” President Joe Biden said, responding on social media to video footage from the town hall.
Haley, 51, attempted to clarify her comments during a local radio interview Thursday in New Hampshire, saying that “of course the Civil War was about slavery, that’s the easy part.”
She accused the town hall interrogator — who declined to identify himself to reporters — of being a “Democratic plant” sent to damage her campaign and bolster Trump, who is seen by many as a weaker candidate facing to Biden in the general election.
Trump has a more than 20-point lead in polls for the Jan. 23 primary in New Hampshire, but Haley is gaining ground, overtaking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the biggest threat to the former president .
DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo called Haley’s clarification “embarrassing.”
“If she can’t answer a question as basic as what caused the Civil War, what does she think will happen to her in a general election. The Democrats would eat her lunch,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter.
The Florida governor, far behind Trump in nationwide primary polls, has sparked controversy in his own state over teaching about race, a sensitive issue that divides Americans.
Trump himself has been chastised from both sides of the political divide and accused of echoing Adolf Hitler in his remarks about undocumented migrants “poisoning the blood” of the nation.
Haley, who has always stirred up heated controversy over America’s Confederate past, raised eyebrows over her views on the Civil War during her successful campaign for South Carolina governor in 2010.
Calling the conflict a battle between “tradition” and “change,” she told a private meeting of Confederate heritage groups that there were “passions on both sides.”
She was praised 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 to keep the flag raised during her election campaign, arguing that “each state has different conditions, and each state has certain things that it holds as part of its heritage.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said his latest remarks were “not stunning” to Black South Carolina residents during his tenure.
“Some people may have forgotten, but not me. It’s time to take off the rose-colored glasses Nikki Haley,” he said.
