Presidential candidate Nikki Haley, the new darling of the American right, was under fire Thursday for refusing to mention slavery during a question about the causes of the Civil War.
“Why did the Civil War break out in the United States? “, asked a voter during an exchange Wednesday evening with the candidate for the 2024 election in New Hampshire.
“Well, that’s an easy question,” quipped the former American ambassador to the UN about the 19th century conflict.e century, before launching into a tirade on the American state’s management of individual freedoms at the time.
“I find it crazy that in 2023, you can answer this question without mentioning slavery,” his interlocutor retorts.
During the Civil War (1861-1865), the Confederate South had declared its independence from the United States and fought to preserve slavery, which had been abolished in the rest of the country.
“What do you want me to say about slavery?” “, replied the fifty-year-old, visibly defensive. Then he said to the crowd: “Next question. »
Nikki Haley received a barrage of criticism for this sequence, captured by television stations across the country.
“It was slavery,” said President Joe Biden on X (formerly Twitter), responding himself to the question asked of the candidate.
“Nikki Haley got herself into a huge mess that she herself caused,” mocked a spokesperson for the campaign team of Ron DeSantis, one of his rivals in the Republican primaries, in which Donald Trump is also participating. .
Asked about this sequence, Nikki Haley tried to backpedal Thursday morning: “Of course the Civil War was linked to slavery, we all know that,” she told a local radio station.
Several, however, re-shared comments made by the candidate, dating from the time she was governor of South Carolina. Nikki Haley then refused to change the Confederate flag of this state, although considered by many to be a symbol of slavery and racism.
She changed her mind after a shooting by a white supremacist at a church in her state, which killed nine African-American worshipers in 2015.