Nikki Haley Claims States Have the Right to Secede: ‘They Can Do That’

AP Photo/Matt Kelley

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said on Wednesday that Texas and other states have the right to secede from the Union if they decide they “don’t want to be part of America anymore.”

Haley made the comments during an appearance on the Breakfast Club with Charlamagne tha God amid Texas’ ongoing border standoff with the federal government and border patrol.

Asked, “Would you use force against Texas if they tried to secede over the border issue?” Haley replied:

I believe in states’ rights. I believe that everything should be as close to the people to decide. We know that’s not going to happen, that’s not the issue, I think states have the right to make the decisions that their people want to make. I mean they do in South Carolina, we said we didn’t want Syrian refugees, we said we didn’t want Guantanamo Bay prisoners. We said those things. I do think that laws should be made as close to the people as possible because it empowers the people. If Texas decides they want to do that, they can do that.

Haley then declared, “If that whole state says we don’t want to be part of America anymore, I mean that’s their decision to make, but I don’t think government needs to tell people how to live, how to do anything. I mean, I think that we need to let freedom live.”

The former South Carolina governor made similar remarks in 2010, when she told the Sons of Confederate Veterans group that the Constitution supports state secession.

Asked at the time, “Do you believe the states of the United States have the right to secede from the Union?” Haley said, “I think that they do. I mean, the Constitution says that.”

Haley sparked an uproar in December after she failed to mention slavery during a discussion about the cause of the Civil War.

After a New Hampshire voter asked Haley the cause of the war, she replied, “I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was gonna run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”

Haley continued, “I mean, I think it always comes down to the role of government.”