Nikki Haley and the Confederate flag
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2023
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley often depicts her removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s State House as her key move to take on the history of enslavement. Today on “Post Reports,” we hear how that chapter is more complex than portrayed.
Read more:
As she runs for the GOP presidential nomination, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley often portrays her decision to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds as the culmination of her work to move South Carolina beyond its history of succession and enslavement.
Today on “Post Reports,” political investigative reporter Michael Kranish tells us about Haley’s meetings with Confederate heritage groups while she was governor and how she let the flag fly until a massacre forced her hand.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Back in 2010, when she was running for governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley met in private |
| 0:08.8 | with two men. |
| 0:10.2 | The recording is a bit hard to hear, but the men are with a Confederate heritage group, |
| 0:15.2 | and they want Haley to support Confederate history month. |
| 0:18.8 | Just for a Confederate history month. |
| 0:23.8 | I mean, yes, it's part of the traditional, you know, it's part of tradition. |
| 0:28.8 | Haley says yes. |
| 0:30.8 | As long as it's done where it is in a positive way and not in a negative way, and it doesn't |
| 0:37.8 | go to harm anyone. |
| 0:39.8 | Haley is also pushed to keep the Confederate flag, the symbol of the pro-slavery states from |
| 0:45.7 | the Civil War, flying on statehouse grounds. |
| 0:49.3 | Haley reassures them the flag would stay. |
| 0:52.7 | When Haley did become governor, she changed her mind. |
| 0:56.5 | The Confederate flag I've said from the very beginning never should have been there |
| 1:00.3 | in the first place, but because it was there, I saw the opportunity that maybe we could |
| 1:05.6 | have a conversation about bringing it down. |
| 1:09.8 | Today, Nikki Haley is running for president in the Republican primary. |
| 1:16.5 | And take it from me. |
| 1:18.2 | The first minority female governor in history, America is not a racist country. |
| 1:26.3 | Which led reporter Michael Cranish to look deeper at the story of Haley and the Confederate |
| 1:31.3 | flag. |
| 1:32.3 | Sometimes the history of this story gets summarized in a sentence, something the effect |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Washington Post, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Washington Post and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.