CNN: Iowa Townhall With Erin Burnett: 'Nikki Haley Reflects On Criticism of Her Comments About The Civil War

Source:CNN- Former U.N Ambassador and Governor of South Carolina and now Republican presidential candidate, Nikki Haley.

"CNN's Erin Burnett speaks with former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley about the controversial comments the 2024 presidential hopeful made about slavery and the Civil War." 

From CNN

"Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said Wednesday that fellow candidate Nikki Haley “knew exactly what she was doing” when she failed to mention slavery as a cause of the Civil War at a town hall last week — in a moment that prompted broad criticism from Democrats, as well as her GOP primary opponents.

In an interview on “The View,” Christie said he was confident Haley, the former South Carolina governor, was “not a racist” but suggested she was “trying to be something [she’s] not.”

From The Hill

Nikki Haley responding to CNN anchor Erin Burnett's question about her response to the Civil War and slavery from last week: "Chris Christie is from New Jersey. I should've said slavery right off the bat." 

"Responding to a question by an Iowa caucus voter during a CNN hosted town hall last night, former South Carolina Governor Haley acknowledged she should have brought up slavery in her initial response and invoked her own experience growing up in the south in an Indian family.

'I should have said slavery right off the bat,' she began. 'If you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery. You grow up and you have, you know, I had black friends growing up,' she told host Erin Burnett.

'It is a very talked about thing. We have a big history in South Carolina, when it comes to, you know, slavery, when it comes to all the things that happened with the Civil War, all of that,' Haley said during the town hall." 

From The Daily Mail

Along with Nikki Haley saying that she had "Black friends growing up in South Carolina", the other thing that I take away from Nikki Haley's response here, is her responding to what Chris Christie said and just trying to put him off that he's from New Jersey and of course it's easy as a Republican to politically be against slavery and acknowledge that of course the Civil War was about slavery, when you are from New Jersey or some other big, blue state. But he should try walking in her political shoes as a South Carolina Republican. She's basically saying that she's from South Carolina and you can't afford to be politically tough on the Confederacy and Confederates, when you are a South Carolina Republican. I think that's what she's saying politically here, if I were to try to translate her response politically. 

Yes, she cleaned up her response and had a more intelligent and stronger answer. But when a drunk driver gets into an accident, the easy thing to do is to come to the realization that you shouldn't driven drunk in the first place. The point is that you shouldn't have made that colossal mistake in the first place. A strong, honest, and, moral, political leader, who wants to be President of the United States, doesn't shoot her foot off, when asked a basic question like what was the American Civil War about. 

This is what I said about Nikki Haley back in October and I still stand by it: 

"Also, between Joe Biden and Nikki Haley, would Trump voters turn out and vote for her? They tend not to turn out and vote in big numbers, when they're cult leader (sometimes you have to be frank) isn't on the ballot. And would they vote for someone whose not just a woman, but a Never-Trumper, whose also not from their race, ethnicity, generation, culture, etc? 

And if she goes out-of-her-way for their vote and just tries to appeal to those voters, would that turn Independents off for her and also turn out more Democrats against her?" 

From The New Democrat

This is what I said about Nikki Haley last week and I still stand by this as well: 

"There are times in every successful leader's career where they are tested and you know right there how strong of a person and leader that they are and how good their character is. The old expression you: "You never have a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression", is how I look at Nikki Haley right now. 

I wasn't going to vote for her anyway, if it was a choice between her and Joe Biden. But she just reenforced not just to Democrats, but Independents, as well as Conservative Republicans, (you know, normal Republicans) who are suffocating in Trumpland right now, hoping for hope that there's any shot in hell, that they'll be able to vote for anyone other than Donald Trump or Joe Biden for President in 2024, that she's still a late night TV host, looking for a prime time spot, but simply isn't ready big leagues yet.

Does Nikki Haley really think that even in her home state of South Carolina, that the far-right, is going to vote for a South Asian, as well as East Indian-American woman, a gen-xer, a daughter of immigrants, for President of the United States? Of course not. So why does she feel the need to try to get those folks who live in Fantasy Land ideologically and culturally? 

I agree with Shermichael Singleton that this disqualifies her as a serious presidential candidate now. Maybe Nikki and Ron DeSantis can run for President together as a duo now." 

From The New Democrat

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