Why is CNN Launching Yet Another Bad Faith, Out of Context Attack on Nikki Haley?

On Wednesday, CNN New Day co-host Brianna Keilar delivered a bad faith, out-of-context attack against Nikki Haley, who served as former President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations and is a possible candidate to run for president in 2024.

The previous evening, Haley delivered a phenomenal speech about how American history rhymes and that current events have mimicked the pre-Reagan era in which America was weak and hated at home and abroad.

I recommend watching or reading the speech in its entirety.

“A large portion of our people are plagued by self-doubt or even by hatred of America,” said Haley, in a clip played on New Day. “It’s a pandemic much more damaging than any virus.”

Keilar said that “the former ambassador to the U.N. is not letting more than 700,000 Covid deaths and counting get in the way of minimizing a pandemic politicized by the administration she served, as she suggests liberals hate America, and the country doesn’t have a racism program, as she recounted growing up in the South.”

Haley did not minimize the coronavirus. The virus is a serious matter. Haley’s point was that, comparatively, the hatred of America that has fomented abroad and at home could have even more devastating consequences — with that domestic hatred bubbling up most notably in academia, the media, corporations and in government.

An example that Haley mentioned of the domestic hatred of America is the teaching of critical race theory, which teaches that U.S. law and institutions are inherently racist and therefore racism is institutional as opposed to being done by individuals.

While the pandemic’s impact has been inarguably devastating, its societal effects will eventually abate — especially with a vaccine having been developed in record time. On the other hand, hatred or self-doubt of America, compared to the coronavirus pandemic, has far more long-term consequences to the American psyche. When hatred becomes widespread, it can take years for that damage to be undone. It took hundreds of years for America to no longer be systemically racist whereas pandemics of the past were much less than that.

Side note: Speaking of polarization, it is not just the Trump administration, but also the Biden administration which has politicized the pandemic with the former playing down the virus early on to the latter being beholden to teachers unions as opposed to science when it comes to masks in schools.

The segment then went on to play a clip of Haley saying in her speech, “And take it from me, the first female and first minority governor of South Carolina . . . America is not a racist country.” This was followed by a soundbite of Haley saying, “As a brown girl, growing up in a small Southern town, I saw the promise of America unfold before me.”

The segment then showed a soundbite of Haley, in a May 2018 interview with CBS, talking about growing up in a Sikh family in South Carolina, where people judged them because she and her family were different

Keilar slammed Haley for saying that “systemic racism” no longer exists in America and, by playing clips, cited her reversing her stance on the Confederate flag being on statehouse grounds. Keilar gave Haley credit for that.

Keilar then said:

In last night’s speech, the former governor who removed the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds only to have that symbol brandished inside the U.S. Capitol by rioters this past January, whitewashed the ups and downs of the American experience with racism and the challenges still ahead, all apparently to appeal to the conservative base.

Keilar did not play the clip of Haley saying in her speech, “We must not be ashamed of the American story. We should tell it everywhere we go. We know that some of it’s hard to hear. The founders weren’t saints. They lived in a time in which slavery was legal, and women’s rights were an afterthought. We don’t need to make excuses for those obvious injustices.” Doesn’t sound like Haley whitewashed America’s past.

And, in her speech, Haley didn’t whitewash the challenges America still faces, with hatred of America at home and abroad being an example. Haley also mentioned other policy issues: “Growing inflation. Runaway federal spending and debt. Rampant crime in our cities. Radical leftists running our universities. Radical Islamists holding Americans hostage. An evil Communist empire aggressively spreading its influence in the world.”

Keilar, like many of her peers in the mainstream media do, ignorantly labeled all Trump supporters as extremists — as if the people at the Capitol on January 6 represent the whole of the party. That labeling is no different than the Right labeling all Democrats and people on the Left as extremists given last summer’s riots.

Keilar’s attack wasn’t the only time CNN has gone after Haley of late. In August, anchor Jake Tapper disingenuously attacked her over criticizing the Biden administration’s disastrous Afghanistan policy. This is starting to become a pattern for the network.

While it is fair to condemn Haley going back and forth about Trump’s future role in the GOP and whether she would run if he runs in 2024, Haley has throughout her career called balls and strikes. While her stance on Trump has unquestionably evolved, Haley has provided nuance in that while Trump’s conduct leading up to Jan. 6 should be condemned, his policies can be lauded. It’s worth noting that in that same Wall Street Journal interview, where she made those reversals, she rejected Trump’s “Big Lie” that the election was stolen from him.

But Keilar doesn’t care about nuance. She shows that by lumping Haley and all Trump supporters in with the man himself. Haley, on the other hand, does care about nuance. She has shown to be a conservative with gravitas, who speaks in measured tones and offers solutions to problems, rather than just empty rants. Haley is a conservative. intelligence, empathy, and charisma. Which is precisely why you’ve seen CNN go after her so hard. And that is why they will continue to do so.

Watch above, via CNN.

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

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