Nikki Haley’s Claim She Always Rejected The Confederate Flag Undermined By 2010 Defense

AP Photo/Meg Kinnard

2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s 2019 comments that she has always maintained the Confederate flag should never have been in the South Carolina state capitol are undermined by prior comments that the flag is not racist and would remain flying.

In a 2019 appearance PBS News program Firing Line, host Margaret Hoover asked the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador in the Trump administration about her 2019 claim that for many the flag represented “service, sacrifice and heritage.”

“In order to bring a compromise, you have to be able to respect the views of your people.”

Former S.C. Gov. @NikkiHaley explains why she said Dylann Roof “hijacked” the Confederate flag from people who saw it as a symbol of “service and sacrifice and heritage.” pic.twitter.com/VODRxyJYDu

— Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow) February 23, 2023

After blaming “the outrage of media” and “political correctness” for the scrutiny her past comments about the flag have received, Haley said she has been consistent that the flag should not have flown on South Carolina statehouse grounds:

The Confederate flag I’ve said from from the very beginning never should have been there in the first place. But because it was there, I saw the opportunity that maybe we could have a conversation about bringing it down. But in order to bring a compromise, you have to be able to respect the views of your people. They were two different sets of people. One set of people saw the Confederate flag as pain and racism and slavery. The other set of people saw it not as racism, but as heritage and sacrifice and service. If I had gone and condemned those people that saw it that way, that flag never would have come down. Instead, I had to acknowledge the thoughts of both and say, But now it’s time for our state to move forward.

Hoover followed up by pointing out that Confederate symbols mostly disappeared after the Civil War, and only re-emerged in the south in the 1960s as a backlash to the push for Civil Rights.

“As a woman of color who grew up in the aftermath of that, how do you square that with the heritage, not hate messaging?” Hoover asked.

Haley responded by agreeing with Hoover that the flag was revived because of racism.

Haley: Well, I mean, I think it was hard. I mean, in South Carolina, it was very tough because this issue had been debated for decades. And so when you have them, you know, it was their view that this was their heritage —

Hoover: Even though that heritage was resurrected explicitly around a time of resisting racial integration.

Haley: Absolutely it was. Which is why the Confederate flag never should have been there in the first place. What I tried to communicate to the people of South Carolina is no one should drive past that statehouse and feel pain.

Despite her claim to have always opposed the flag, Haley previously defended it. In 2010 comments unearthed by CNN, Haley denied the flag was racist.

Per CNN:

“You know, for those groups that come in and say they have issues with the Confederate flag, I will work to talk to them about it,” Haley said. “I will work and talk to them about the heritage and how this is not something that is racist. This is something that is a tradition that people feel proud of and let them know that we want their business in this state. And that the flag where it is, was a compromise of all people that everybody should accept as part of South Carolina.”

She changed course after the racist massacre in a church in Charleston, then calling on the flag to be removed from the state capitol.

“There is a place for that flag,” Haley said 2015. “It’s not in a place that represents all people in South Carolina.”

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