Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Wednesday declined to mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War when asked by a voter during a town hall in New Hampshire.
The contentious exchange began after the voter questioned the former South Carolina governor about the cause of the four-year war.
“I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was gonna run — the freedoms and what people could and couldn't do," Haley answered before turning the question back to the voter. "What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?"
The voter responded that they were not the person running for president and were interested in hearing her take on the question.
"I mean, I think it always comes down to the role of government," Haley replied. "We need to have capitalism, we need to have economic freedom. We need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way."
The voter appeared shocked, telling the presidential hopeful, "In the year 2023, it's astonishing to me that you can answer that question without mentioning the word 'slavery.'"
Haley then attempted to move on, asking "What do you want me to say about slavery?" before requesting the "next question."
The back-and-forth occurred around an hour and a half into the town hall event and comes just weeks ahead of the state's primary. Haley has steadily climbed in the polls in recent months in large part due to her debate performances, which have won her favor among billionaire donors and voters seeking to keep Donald Trump out of the White House, though the former president maintains a sizeable lead in the polls over his GOP primary opponents.
Haley responded to the backlash on Thursday by blaming a "Democratic plant."
“It was definitely a Democrat plant,” she said in a radio interview, according to Mediaite. “When asked him, he didn’t want to answer. He didn’t give reporters his name.”
Haley insisted that "of course, the Civil War was about slavery."
"We know that. That’s the easy part of it," she said in a recording aired by CNN. "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.”
We need your help to stay independent
Haley's Civil War comments sparked harsh rebukes, including from President Joe Biden, who retweeted the video with the caption, "It was about slavery."
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison also admonished Haley in a statement, saying, "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," he wrote. "This isn't hard: condemning slavery is the baseline for anyone who wants to be president of the United States, but Nikki Haley and the rest of the MAGA GOP are choking on their words trying to rewrite history."
Harrison went on to say that Haley's comments "were a slap in the face to Black voters, who she has turned her back on time and again - from championing the Confederate flag to trivializing Black History Month," adding they will "turn their backs on her at the polls."
"Some may have forgotten but I haven’t," Harrison added in a post to X, formerly Twitter. "Time to take off the rose colored Nikki Haley glasses folks."
Experts and other politicians further criticized Haley, with some noting that her Wednesday night remarks would deal a massive blow to her presidential bid.
"[I]s candidate @NikkiHaley who would fail any elementary US history course on the Civil War qualified to hold the office of the Presidency?" Civil War historian Manisha Sinha asked.
Haley's answer "is reflective of where the Republican base is right now, that you can't tell a simple truth for fear of losing voters in what has become such a radicalized Republican Party," said MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire.
"This could blunt some of her momentum," he later added. "Iowa's been hard for her, but going into New Hampshire, she did have the wind at her back — maybe this costs her."
Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
"It's breathtaking," MSNBC contributor Jennifer Palmieri responded. "I had read the transcript, but I had not actually seen it, and it's just breathtaking when she says, 'What do you want me to say about slavery?' That is her campaign in one question, right? It is, like, 'Who do you want me to be right now? Who do I need to morph into in order to never take Trump on, but be acceptable enough to sort of the MAGA majority?'"
In a post to X, New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, who created the 1619 Project on the impact of slavery on U.S. history said that what Haley was asked was "not even a hard question."
"It’s absurd that she felt she had to evade the question to avoid political liability," Hannah-Jones added.
Ron Filipkowski, an attorney and editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch, echoed Palmieri's and Hannah-Jones' sentiments, tweeting that, "When the candidate for the so-called normal Republicans refuses to say that slavery was the reason for the Civil War, & instead repeats the talking points of Jefferson Davis, there is no more Republican Party.
"It’s MAGA, and people registered as Republicans who don’t know it yet," he concluded.
Shares