‘I Was A History Major’: CNN’s Jake Tapper Pushes Back At Nikki Haley Over Racism Claim
CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday challenged Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley over her widely-panned declare to Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade earlier this week that America shouldn’t be and has “never been” a racist nation.
During a televised city corridor occasion at New England College in New Hampshire, Tapper reminded Haley that “protections for the institution of slavery were written into the U.S. Constitution, the White House was built with slave labor” and that Haley’s “home state of South Carolina seceded from the Union, fought a war to defend the enslavement of Black people.”
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“I understand you don’t think America is a racist country now,” acknowledged Tapper. “But we’re here at a college. Do you really think, as a historical matter, America has never been a racist country?”
Haley replied, “It was that men are created equal with unalienable rights, right? That was what we all knew. But what I look at it as is I was a brown girl that grew up in a small, rural town. We had plenty of racism that we had to deal with, but my parents never said we lived in a racist country, and I’m so thankful they didn’t, because for every brown and Black child out there, if you tell them they live or are born in a racist country, you’re immediately telling them they don’t have a chance.”
The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations stated she believed within the significance of telling youngsters that “America is not perfect” and “we have our stains” however that “our goal should always be to make today better than yesterday..”
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“National self-loathing” is “killing our country,” Haley claimed, later saying she needed youngsters of shade to see her political ascent and say, ‘No, I don’t dwell in a rustic that was shaped on racism. I dwell in a rustic the place they needed all individuals to be equal and to ensure that they had life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’”
Tapper adopted up, “OK, but just to push back a bit, because I was a history major in New Hampshire” earlier than saying she was speaking in regards to the beliefs of America however that the nation was nonetheless “founded institutionally on many racist precepts, including slavery.”
Haley argued “the intent” of America’s founding was “to do the right thing” and stated she refused “to believe that the premise of when they formed our country was based on the fact that it was a racist country to start with.”
