Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor who later served as United States ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, is drawing criticism for comments she recently made on the campaign trail.

At a town hall event in New Hampshire, Haley was asked by a member of the audience, “What was the cause of the United States Civil War?” Her response, captured in a minute-long video that has since been shared by the Biden campaign and others across social media, started with, “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.” From there, Haley continued a disjointed response that criticized the role of government in general and spoke about “capitalism” and “economic freedom,” but did not mention slavery. When the questioner pointed out that omission, Haley responded by asking him, “What do you want me to say about slavery?” and then asked for the “next question.”

Haley’s answer about “government” and “freedom” seems to be a rephrasing of the “states’ rights” argument that has long been used by Confederate sympathizers to downplay the role of slavery in the Civil War. Qasim Rashid, a lawyer and congressional candidate from Illinois, pointed out in a tweet that “in South Carolina’s Articles of Secession, the VERY FIRST reason they give on why they’re going to war is, ‘[A]n increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery…'”

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, also from South Carolina, released a statement saying, in part, “This isn’t hard: condemning slavery is the baseline for anyone who wants to be president of the United States, but Nikki Haley and the rest of the MAGA GOP are choking on their words trying to rewrite history.”

The Biden-Harris presidential campaign posted a video of Haley’s comments, and President Joe Biden responded to the video with a four-word tweet: “It was about slavery.”

By Thursday, “Nikki Haley” and “Civil War” were trending on social media, as she was largely criticized for her answer. Responding to the growing criticism to her response, Haley said on The Pulse of NH — News Talk Radio Network on Thursday morning, “I mean, of course, the Civil War was about slavery,” before pivoting back to her talking points that “It was about individual freedom. It was about economic freedom” and saying that we should “never go back to the stain of slavery,” Politico reported.

So far, Haley’s comments are continuing to be criticized by political pundits and social media posters who see her and the Republican Party as continuing to downplay the impacts of racism and slavery in the country. Haley may continue to try to clean up her words, but for many, her initial answer has told them what they need to know about her views and those of her party.

2024 presidential electionNikki Haley