“Painful”: Nikki Haley slammed for using “Black friends” defense after Civil War debacle

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Thursday attempted to clean up her answer omitting slavery as a cause of the Civil War last month by citing her “Black friends” growing up.

Haley last month came under criticism after a New Hampshire town hall in which she failed to mention slavery as a root cause of the Civil War.

 “If you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery. You grow up and you have, you know, I had Black friends growing up. It is a very talked about thing. We have a big history in South Carolina, when it comes to, you know, slavery, when it comes to all the things that happened with the Civil War, all of that,” the former South Carolina governor said at an Iowa CNN town hall.

“I was thinking past slavery, and talking about the lesson that we would learn going forward. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have said slavery but in, in my mind, that’s a given that everybody associates the civil war with slavery,” she said, citing her childhood in the only Indian family in a small, rural town.

“It was not just slavery that was talked about, it was more about racism that was talked about,” she said. “We had Black friends, we had White friends, but it was always a topic of conversation.”

Haley’s comments were panned during a post-town hall panel on CNN.

The former U.N. ambassador “hasn’t learned the critical issue of cleaning things up, which is sometimes less is more,” said Republican strategist Scott Jennings, according to The Washington Post. “It unspools and it unspools … less is more here, take the L and move on.”

Former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin added that “she did herself no favors, and she kind of put herself back where she was at the beginning of this issue.”

CNN host Van Jones called Haley’s remarks “painful.”

“She was cleaning it up with a dirty rag. I mean it wasn’t a cleanup at all. It’s painful; I don’t get it. I think it says something about her; I think it says something about the Republican base,” he said.

“I think it says something about the Republican base that she is so afraid that there’s some big number of people that can’t hear that, that she’s got to tiptoe through every tulip she can find and wrap herself around the axle avoiding saying stuff that’s true,” he added. “I found it painful. I mean, not personally painful, but it’s awkward to watch a grown woman not be able to say what any kindergarten teacher could say, any third grade teacher could say, because there’s either something off about her or about this party that will not be able to speak the truth.”

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Haley during the town hall also defended her vow to pardon former President Donald Trump.

“When you talk about a pardon, the person has already been found guilty. You know, when it comes to President Trump, he still has to face and we’ll find out whether he’s guilty or not. But if we’re talking about a pardon let’s — you’re assuming he’s guilty because nobody gets pardoned if you’re not guilty,” she said.

“For me, it’s not about guilt or innocence. It’s about what’s in the best interest for the country. And I don’t think our country will move forward with an 80-year-old president sitting in jail that allows our country to continue to be divided,” she added.