Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) on Thursday sought to clean up controversial remarks in which she failed to mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War.
"Of course the Civil War was about slavery," Haley said in a New Hampshire radio interview. "We know that. That's the easy part of it. What I was saying was what does it mean to us today? What it means to us today is about freedom. That's what that was all about."
She later accused the voter who asked her about the cause of the Civil War of being a "Democrat plant," the New Hampshire Journal reported.
Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador, came under fire Wednesday night after a video of her exchange with a voter in New Hampshire circulated on social media.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks during a town hall, Friday, Dec. 8, 2023, in Sioux City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Pressed by the Granite State voter over the cause of the Civil War during the town hall in Berlin, N.H., Haley said, “Well, don’t come with an easy question, right? I mean, 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.”
Haley said it “always” comes down to the role of government, telling the crowd, “We need to have capitalism, we need to have economic freedom."
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The voter responded it was "astonishing" that she did not mention slavery while discussing the Civil War.
“What do you want me to say about slavery?” she asked.
“You answered my question. Thank you,” the voter responded.
The speed with which Haley moved to correct her remarks indicated their danger to her campaign. Haley has been closing in on former President Trump in polls of New Hampshire, and criticism of her earlier remarks was leading cable newscasts and making headlines.
The Decision Desk HQ/The Hill’s polling index shows Trump with a 17-percentage-point lead over Haley in New Hampshire, but the size of the gap has fallen markedly in the last month. On Dec. 6, Haley trailed Trump by 27 percentage points.
Republicans and Democrats had slammed Haley's initial Civil War comments, with Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a supporter of Trump, writing on X, formerly Twitter, that the answer was "slavery, period." Donalds said Haley's comments wouldn't ultimately matter because Trump would be the GOP presidential nominee.
Fellow White House hopeful, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaign, posted the video of Haley online with the word, “Yikes.”
President Biden reposted a video of the exchange, writing, "It was about slavery.”
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.) on Thursday called Haley's remarks a "sad betrayal of her own story."
"Nikki Haley's father, like mine, came to the US in the late 1960s because of the civil rights movement and the 1965 Immigration Act. Haley's refusal to talk honestly about slavery or race in America is a sad betrayal of her own story. To what end?" Khanna wrote on X.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) addresses reporters during a press conference on Thursday, December 14, 2023 with union members calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Haley on Thursday in seeking to address the matter said the "lesson" is that "freedom matters and individual rights and liberties matter for all people," her campaign told The Hill.
"That’s the blessing of America. That was a stain on America when we had slavery," she continued. "But what we want is never relive it. Never let anyone take those freedoms away again.”
Haley and DeSantis are neck-and-neck for second place behind Trump when it comes to national polling. As of Thursday, Trump leads the national polls with 63.1 percent of the support, followed by Haley with 10.8 percent and DeSantis close behind with 10.6 percent, according to Decision Desk HQ and The Hill’s polling index.
This story was last updated at 11:40 a.m.