Appearing Friday on right-wing political commentator Glenn Beck’s radio show, Haley asserted that the Confederate flag was viewed by people in South Carolina - of which Haley was governor from 2011 to 2017 - as a symbol of “service and sacrifice and heritage” up until it was “hijacked” by Roof, a white supremacist who has been sentenced to death for the June 2015 mass murder of nine black worshippers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
"Here is this guy that comes out with his manifesto, holding the Confederate flag, and had just hijacked everything that people thought of," Haley said on Beck’s show. Within Roof’s manifesto, the then-21-year-old was pictured holding a Confederate flag in multiple photos and was also shown holding a burning American flag.
Haley, who some have predicted will be a 2024 presidential candidate for the Republican Party - or even US President Donald Trump’s running mate over Vice President Mike Pence in the upcoming election - did not receive a glowing response from Twitter and quickly became a trending topic.
Haley seemingly attempted to clean up her statement through a Friday tweet linking to a New York Times article which included a transcript of her proposal to have the Confederate flag removed from the grounds of the South Carolina capitol in 2015, when she was the state’s governor.
“2015 was a painful time for our state.The pain was and is still real. Below was my call for the removal of the Confederate flag & I stand by it. I continue to be proud of the people of SC and how we turned the hate of a killer into the love for each other,” she said on December 6.