Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticized President Joe Biden on Monday night for giving a “political speech” at a South Carolina church where nine Black people were killed in a racist shooting, further accusing Biden of having a long history of making racist remarks.
The former South Carolina governor made the comments at Fox News town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, after Biden spoke at Mother Emanuel, the Charleston AME church where parishioners were killed by a white supremacist gunman in 2015. “For Biden to show up there and give a political speech is offensive in and of itself,” Haley said.
The former United Nations ambassador also responded to a jibe Biden made during his speech referencing Haley’s failure to mention slavery when asked about the causes of the Civil War. “Let me be clear for those who don’t seem to know—slavery was the cause of the Civil War,” Biden said Monday. “There’s no negotiation about that.”
“I don’t need someone who palled around with segregationists in the ’70s and has said racist comments all the way through his career lecturing me or anyone in South Carolina about what it means to have racism, slavery, or anything related to the Civil War,” Haley said.
In the past, Haley tried to protect herself in her Civil War fiasco by describing the guy who first asked her about the confrontation as a “Democratic plant” and saying that she “had black friends growing up. “
After Biden’s speech, Haley’s crusade sent reporters a calendar titled “Biden’s Racial Comments and Actions,” according to the Associated Press, which included a 1974 quote in which Biden presented himself as a “symbolic” in the Senate, and a 1981 case in which he said George Wallace, the segregationist former governor of Alabama, had been “right about certain things. “
Haley’s complaint came after Biden’s speech to Mother Emanuel was interrupted by protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. “If you care about the lives lost here, you deserve to honor the lives lost and call for a ceasefire in Gaza,” one protester shouted. Biden confided to the protesters that he understood their “passion,” adding that he had “quietly worked with the Israeli government to get them to particularly de-escalate and leave Gaza, using everything in my power to do that. “
Media Correspondent
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