DeSantis Roasts Haley for ‘Word Salad’ Answer on Civil War and Slavery: Not ‘Ready for Primetime’
Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis roasted rival Nikki Haley for her widely panned comments on the Civil War Thursday, one day after Haley came under fire for her response to a question at a townhall event in New Hampshire.
Asked about the cause of the Civil War on Wednesday, Haley replied that “the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was gonna run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”
After the audience member expressed surprise that she hadn’t mentioned slavery, Haley responded “What do you want me to say about slavery?”
On Thursday, DeSantis remarked that Haley was not “ready for primetime” and professed not to understand what she was trying to say.
“You know, I noticed that Nikki Haley has had some problems with some basic American history. She’s asked a very simple question and responded with just a really incomprehensible word salad about this and that,” DeSantis told reporters.
He continued:
And, you know, she asked the voter, what do you want her to say about this or that? And then now is taking different positions in this. And so I just think that this shows this is not a candidate that’s ready for primetime. She’s gotten a pretty free ride from a lot of the corporate press. The minute that she faces any type of scrutiny, she tends to cave, and I think that that’s what you saw yesterday. Not that difficult to identify and acknowledge the role slavery played in the Civil War. And yet that seemed to be something that was really difficult. I don’t even know what she was saying if you listen to that answer, I know she’s trying to clean it up, I know she’s trying to blame a Democrat plant. Look, I mean, you’re going to get asked a lot of questions. I mean, you’re gonna get asked a lot of tough questions. That’s just the nature of this business. And I think that she’s shown time and time again that when it’s time, when the lights get hot, that she wilts under pressure. And that was a good example last night.
Watch above via DeSantis War Room on X.
