Nikki Haley hit from all sides after omitting 'slavery' from Civil War response

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is catching heat from both sides of the political aisle after she initially declined to mention slavery as the reason for sparking the U.S. Civil War.

A voter asked the former U.N. ambassador during a New Hampshire town hall on Wednesday what was "the cause" of the war, to which she joked, "Well, don’t come with an easy question or anything."

"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," she continued.

Nikki Haley speaks during a town hall event in Agency, Iowa, on Dec. 19. (Christian Monterrosa/AFP via Getty Images)

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"I mean, I think it all comes down to the role of government," she added. "We need to have capitalism. We need to have economic freedom. We need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way."

The voter responded that he was shocked she didn’t mention the word "slavery."

"What do you want me to say about slavery?" Haley asked. "Next question."

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks during a town hall in Nevada, Iowa, on Dec. 18. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Haley’s response sparked backlash from the White House to the campaign trail.

"It was about slavery," President Biden posted on X with a clip of Haley's comments.

Bryan Griffin, the press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign, wrote: "On today's scoreboard, Donald Trump complained about his treatment in the movie Home Alone 2, Nikki Haley stepped in a giant mess of her own making, and @RonDeSantis dismantled the far-left Miami Dade school union. Take your pick!"

"Not stunning if you were a Black resident in SC when she was Governor," wrote Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison. "Same person who said the confederate flag was about tradition & heritage and as a minority woman she was the right person to defend keeping it on state house grounds. Some may have forgotten but I haven’t. Time to take off the rose colored Nikki Haley glasses folks."

Haley clarified her remarks in a New Hampshire radio interview Thursday morning.

"Yes, we know the Civil War was about slavery. But more than that, what’s the lesson in all this? That freedom matters. And individual rights and liberties matter for all people. That’s the blessing of America. That was a stain on America when we had slavery. But what we want is never relive it. Never let anyone take those freedoms away again," she said.

Haley's campaign pointed to her most recent comments when reached by Fox News Digital.

Nikki Haley speaks at a town hall after receiving an endorsement from New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Dec. 12. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Not everyone joined in the criticism of Haley, with some conservatives arguing it was a "gotcha" question.

"She couldn’t have actually handled it better," Fox News host Griff Jenkins said on "Fox & Friends." "And in that moment, I think she handled it quite well, considering, and didn’t give in to what would clearly, as you point out, a gotcha question."

"This is a governor, in the wake of a massacre of Black residents in AME Church in Charleston, out of that disaster and tragedy she then had the political courage to drop, in one of the most Southern of all states, the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds and took immense heat for it," he said. "To say that she isn’t willing and doesn’t have the moral fortitude and political courage to stand and condemn the evils of slavery is embarrassing on the face of it."

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