Haley takes flak for blaming Civil War gaffe on ‘plant’

by Miranda Nazzaro - 12/28/23 12:46 PM ET

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is facing heat from a slew of political strategists and commentators after deflecting the blame for a recent gaffe about the Civil War.

In the wake of criticism over Haley’s remarks in which she failed to mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War, the former South Carolina governor suggested the voter who asked her the question was a “Democrat Plant.”

“Well, don’t come with an easy question, right? I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do,” Haley responded to the New Hampshire voter, who pressed her over the cause of the Civil War.

The GOP hopeful added it “always” comes down to the role of government, telling the crowd, “We need to have capitalism, we need to have economic freedom.”

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks at a town hall campaign event, Tuesday, Dec.12, 2023, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The voter then said it was “astonishing” that she did not mention slavery while discussing the Civil War.

“What do you want me to say about slavery?” she asked.

“You answered my question. Thank you,” the voter responded.

Later on Thursday morning, Haley sought to clean up the remarks while in a New Hampshire radio interview.

“Of course the Civil War was about slavery,” Haley said Thursday. “We know that. That’s the easy part of it. What I was saying was what does it mean to us today? What it means to us today is about freedom. That’s what that was all about,” adding later she believes the voter was a “Democrat plant.”

Democratic strategist Lis Smith dug into the “plant” remark, writing on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: “The identity of the questioner is irrelevant.”

“Part of running for president and doing the whole early state thing is showing you have ‘what it takes’ to deal with everything that comes your way…including answering BASIC QUESTIONS about the cause of the Civil War,” Smith continued.

Republican strategist Liz Mair expressed her agreement with Smith on X, writing, “McCain knew he’d get an ‘Obama is a Muslim’ or ‘Obama is an Arab’ question. And he knew how to handle it.”

Mair argued political candidates need to be “aware” that there will likely be so-called plants in the audience.

“And you have to be able to answer their questions deftly. This wasn’t that,” she wrote on X.

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Dan McLaughlin, a senior writer for the National Review, said it’s “quite possibly true” that the voter was a plant, though the question was “easy.”

“But it was still an easy question & she just ran the red lights like she was on autopilot,” he wrote on X.

Political analyst Bill Kristol pushed back on the plant argument, writing, “What does ‘sending plants’ mean? It’s a town hall! All kinds of people show up! That’s the point.”

Kristol added he isn’t sure the question qualified as “a devilishly clever trick question.”

The political analysts’ criticism joins that of various Democrats, such as President Biden, who wrote on X, “It was about slavery.”

Seeking to address the matter Thursday, Haley said the “lesson” is that “freedom matters and individual rights and liberties matter for all people,” her campaign told The Hill.

“That’s the blessing of America. That was a stain on America when we had slavery,” she said. “But what we want is never to relive it. Never let anyone take those freedoms away again.”