Biden, DeSantis take aim at Nikki Haley over remarks that Civil War was about 'how government was gonna run'

Nikki Haley answered a question during a town hall in Berlin, NH, and was roundly slammed for her answer. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took aim at her in the aftermath, as did President Joe Biden. 

"What was the cause of the United States Civil War?" Haley was asked by a voter.

"Well, don't come with an easy question or anything," Haley joked. "Well I mean I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was gonna run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn't do," she said, taking a more esoteric view than the typical answer, which would have been "slavery."

"What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?" Haley asked, turning the question back on the voter. He said he's "not running for president," and wanted to see what her view was.

"It's astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word 'slavery,'" he also said.

Haley said it "always comes down to the role of government," but did not mention slavery. As governor of South Carolina, Haley had removed the Confederate flag from the state capitol after saying that the flag was "about the heritage and how this is not something that is racist." She removed it in 2015 after legislative approval.

"I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are," Haley said. "And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people."

"It was never meant to be all things to all people," Haley went on. "Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom."

"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 DeSantis campaign took aim at Haley, and at anyone who didn't do the same. Christina Pushaw of the rapid response team called Haley's remarks a "word-salad" and said that "it’s hard for [Haley] to criticize slavery when she has a well documented history of giving corporate welfare and free land to China. She can’t risk offending her CCP friends."

President Joe Biden, or whichever staffer was posting from his account, joined DeSantis in firing back at Haley, saying "It was about slavery."

Her remarks were slammed by other Democrats as well, such as DNC National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison who said her answer was "not stunning if you were a black resident in [South Carolina] when she was governor." 

"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," he went on to say.

Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who is running to be the Democrat nominee for president, said "Sorry, Nikki Haley. The Civil War was about slavery. Period."

The states notably went to war over slavery, and the institution thereof. The argument from the slave-holding states was that the states had the right, under the constitution, to make their own laws, including the law to enslave people. The Union states of the north did not agree with this. Slavery had been a contentious issue back to the founding of the United States and the making of the US Constitution.