Nikki Haley Called Out On Debate Stage For Rejecting Call to Take Down Confederate Flag From Capitol — Months Before Racist Massacre

Former South Carolina Governor and Trump UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was called out on the debate stage for rejecting calls to take down the Confederate Flag from the state Capitol just months before the racist massacre in Charleston that finally led to its removal.

Haley’s campaign announcement this week has refocused attention on her political bio, including the fact that she was governor of South Carolina when the state finally decided to stop flying the Confederate Battle Flag in the wake of the horrific massacre in which nine Black parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church were murdered by Dylann Roof.

But a few months earlier, at an October 2014 gubernatorial debate, then-Gov. Haley was one of the candidates on the stage who thought the flag should remain — and another candidate called her out for it.

On October 14, 2014, Haley, Democratic State Senator Vincent Sheheen, Independent Tom Ervin, Libertarian Steve French, and Morgan Reeves of the United Citizens Party participated in a debate at Charleston Southern University, sponsored by the Charleston Post and Courier and several Sinclair Broadcast Group television stations in the state.

Cynthia Roldan of the Post and Courier asked the candidates about Sheheen’s call for the flag to be taken down.

“Senator Sheheen recently called for the Confederate flag to be removed from all presence on the statehouse grounds. Has the time come to address the flag issue again, and do you think that it has a potential to harm the state economically?” Roldan asked.

Ervin answered first, slamming Sheheen for bringing up the issue and changing the subject to “real problems” like the roads. Sheheen was next, and said “I believe that it’s time that we retire the Confederate flag to a place of respect where the history of this great state can be told, and that we all rally together under a flag that unites us all, the American flag that looks toward the future, not the past.”

Haley responded by also attacking Sheheen for bringing up the issue, argued the flag should stay because she hadn’t heard a single complaint from a CEO, and said electing her as governor and Tim Scott as senator “took care of” the state’s “perception problem”:

You know, the Confederate flag is a very sensitive issue. And what I can tell you is over the last three and a half years, I spend a lot of my days on the phones with CEOs, and recruiting jobs to this state. I can honestly say I have not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag.

What is important here is that we look at the fact that, yes, perception of South Carolina matters. That’s why we have everybody answering the phones “It’s a great day in South Carolina.”

That’s why we’re being named the friendliest state and the most patriotic state and getting all these great accolades. But we really kind of fixed all that when you elected the first Indian-American female governor, when we appointed the first African-American US senator, that sent a huge message.

What sent a strange message was when we had Senator Sheheen, who has been in the Senate 15 years, not once ever mentioned the Confederate flag, never taken the well on the Confederate flag, has no bill talking about the Confederate flag. And one month prior to the election decides that the Confederate flag has to come down. Again, it’s a lot of talk and it’s very little action.

But French disagreed with Haley, saying he had heard such a complaint, and blasting the flag as divisive and backwards:

I’m a libertarian because I believe fundamentally in individual liberty. So if you want to paint your house and the Confederate flag, I am completely fine with that as long as your HOA approves it.

Now, Governor Haley talks about other businesses that have never brought that up. Now, I disagree with that. I’ve got a friend, an MIT grad, who works in California, who continues to bring up the fact that he wants to start his own business, and when I bring up starting it here in South Carolina? He laughs. He smirks. He still thinks of South Carolina as being this backwoods good ol’ boy network.

And that flag, I think, represents a lot of division in this state. And we need to be coming together. We have major problems.

Watch the full exchange above via WACH.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.