Nikki Haley Insists America Has Never Been a Racist Country — Just Weeks After Viral Civil War Slavery Gaffe

Presidential candidate and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (R) appeared on Fox & Friends on Tuesday following her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, telling Fox News host Brian Kilmeade that America has “never been a racist country.”

Kilmeade asked Haley about comments made on Monday night by MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who blamed racism in the Republican party for Haley’s poor showing, saying, “She’s still a brown lady that’s got to try to win in a party that is deeply anti-immigrant, and which accepts the notion you can say immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.” Kilmeade asked for her response:

Kilmeade: Do you agree with her interpretation of the results?

Haley: First of all, I mean, Joy Reid lives in a different America than I do. I mean, yes, I’m a brown girl that grew up in a small rural town in South Carolina who became the first female, minority governor in history, who became a UN Ambassador, and who is now running for president. If that’s not the American dream, I don’t know what is. You can sit there and give me all the reasons why you think I can’t do this. I will continue to defy everybody on why we can do this, and we will get it done.

Kilmeade: Are you a racist party? Are you involved in a racist party?

Haley: No. We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country. Our goal is to make sure that today is better than yesterday. Are we perfect? No. But our goal is to always make sure we try and be more perfect every day that we can.

But despite her claim that America has never been a racist country, Haley then added: “I know I faced racism when I was growing up, but I can tell you today is a lot better than it was then.” Haley made the same claim in 2020 during the Republican National Convention.

Haley’s latest comments on racism come just three weeks after she failed to cite slavery as a reason for the Civil War. The oversight earned her harsh blowback — with critics arguing that she was pandering to the most extreme factions of the Republican base. Haley walked back her comments less than a day later, saying, “Of course the Civil War was about slavery.”

Watch the video above via Fox News.