Nikki Haley ducks questions about stalling on Confederate flag removal when she was governor

One of the key highlights of Republican 2024 presidential nomination contender Nikki Haley's tenure as the governor of South Carolina is being questioned in a report by the Washington Post and the former South Carolina ducked answering questions about it.

As the Post's Michael Kranish reports, Haley stalled off ordering the removal of the Confederate flag on the State House grounds for years until she flipped following a race-inspired shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015 that claimed nine lives.

According to the report, when Haley was campaigning to become governor she met with pro-Confederacy groups and calmed their fears by stating "she shared their worldview," Kranish wrote.

"She said the Civil War was a fight between 'tradition' and 'change,' without mentioning the word slavery. She said she supported Confederate History Month as a parallel to Black History Month," the report states before adding, "...she suggested that her identity as a minority woman could help her take on the NAACP, which was leading a boycott of the state until the Confederate flag was taken off the State House grounds."

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According to the report, her flipping on ordering the flag's removal after the 2015 shooting became one of her calling cards as a moderate.

"As Haley rose from governor to U.N. ambassador under President Donald Trump, she often portrayed the decision as the culmination of her work to move South Carolina beyond its history of secession, enslavement and segregation," the Post is reporting before pointing out in her 2019 memoir that "members of both parties had 'pushed back' against the idea, adding that 'even many African American Democrats were privately opposed to the idea of reopening the flag debate.'"

Pointing out that it appears Haley has been "tailoring" her opinions on race depending on the crowd, the Post reported a "... review of Haley’s actions in the five years before the massacre found that she repeatedly dismissed efforts to remove the flag, mollified Confederate heritage groups whose influence remained a powerful force, and did not hold substantive discussions with Black leaders who wanted to remove the flag. Months before the mass killing that changed her position, her reelection campaign had called a proposal by her Democratic opponent to remove the flag 'desperate and irresponsible.'"

Asked for comment on the Post's report, Haley declined to comment and dismissed a "detailed list of questions from The Post, including a request that she provide the names of Black legislators who opposed reopening the debate over the Confederate flag."

A spokesperson for Haley did state there "'was little appetite in either political party' to take action on the flag, but that 'Haley did her best to hold the state together' after a White man killed nine Black parishioners at a Charleston church," Kranish wrote.

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