FOX News anchor Harris Faulkner disputed Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley's claim that no one but the media talks about her Civil War gaffe.
Haley was grilled at a New Hampshire town hall on December 27 for not mentioning slavery as a cause of the Civil War. The former U.N. ambassador said the cause of the war stems from “what is the role of government and what are the rights of the people.”
Haley said she should have pointed to slavery in her plea, and argued that the only people talking about her plea were the media.
“No, that's not actually true,” Faulkner said.
“Not a single person on the ground in Iowa, not on the ground in New Hampshire or Iowa, is talking about this. We've done a lot of town halls. We've done 150 town halls. I'm a Republican. , Democrats and independents. I'm happy to talk about this,” Haley said. “We have a deep history of confronting slavery in South Carolina. It's the fact that I had to deal with a shooting by an unarmed black man. Dirty cop. We have a deep history of confronting slavery. We passed the nation's first body camera bill. We took down the Confederate flag.”
Haley defended herself after a former staffer to former presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, “She could have answered that damn question.” (Related article: 'Not ready for prime time': DeSantis criticizes Nikki Haley's response to question about Civil War)
“People in South Carolina know me, but when you ask one question out of 150, I immediately say, 'Yeah, I should have said that about slavery, that's a given.' It's amazing to answer one.'' I've done 150 town halls, Harris. So, I have a question: I should have said about slavery, but I didn't do slavery. I immediately came out the next day and said I was wrong,” Haley said.
Haley previously said the questioner at the town hall was a “Democrat.”
“It was definitely a Democratic factory,” she said on a New Hampshire radio show. “When I asked him, he didn't want to answer. He did not give his name to reporters.”
Haley also said in the interview that she did not mention slavery as a cause of the Civil War because she was trying to explain what it meant “to us today.”
