Haley defends US has ‘never been’ racist remark: ‘Intent was to do the right thing’

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley defended her comment that the United States has “never been a racist country” Thursday, saying she believes the country’s “intent was to do the right thing.” 

Haley said at a CNN town hall moderated by anchor Jake Tapper that she had to deal with “plenty of racism” as a daughter of Indian immigrants growing up in a rural town in South Carolina, but she is happy that her parents never told her that they live in a racist country. 

Tapper asked her if she stood by the remark she made during a Tuesday interview on “Fox & Friends” that the country has “never” been racist, considering the country’s history with slavery — including that protections for slavery were written into the Constitution and that her home state of South Carolina seceded from the country ahead of the Civil War at least in part to defend slavery. 

Haley cited the part of the Declaration of Independence that states that “all men are created equal” and their right to “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” 

“When you look, it said, ‘All men are created equal.’ I think the intent was to do the right thing,” she said. “Now, did they have to go fix it along the way? Yes, but I don’t think the intent was ever that we were going to be a racist country.” 

“The intent was everybody was going to be created equally,” she added. “As we went through time, they fixed the things that are not, ‘All men are created equal.’” 

Haley said developments to make everyone equal, including establishing women’s right to vote, happened over time, but she “refuse[s]” to believe that the “premise” of forming the country was based on racism.

A spokesperson for Haley emphasized following her comments on Fox from Tuesday the difference between calling the U.S. a “racist country” and recognizing racism’s existence.

“America has always had racism, but America has never been a racist country,” the spokesperson said. 

Haley said Thursday that telling brown and Black children that they live in a racist country would mean telling them that they do not have a chance to succeed, but she said racism does not define what someone is able to do in the country. 

“We have too many people with this national self-loathing. It is killing our country,” she said. 

An original draft of the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson included a passage that blamed King George III for continuing the transatlantic slave trade and condemned the institution of slavery, according to History.com. That passage was ultimately removed during editing from the Second Continental Congress. 

“I have to know in my heart, and in everybody’s heart, that we live in the best country in the world. And we are a work in progress, and we’ve got a long way to go to fix all of our little kinks, but I truly believe our Founding Fathers had the best of intentions when they started,” Haley said. 

“And we fixed it along the way, and we should always look at it that way,” she continued.

Updated Jan. 19 at 7:27 a.m. ET