Nikki Haley believes viral Civil War question was a setup: 'Definitely a Democrat plant'

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley alleged Thursday that the audience member who asked her about the Civil War at a town hall was a "Democrat plant."

At a town hall in New Hampshire on Wednesday, an audience member asked Haley what caused the Civil War. The cause, Haley responded, "was basically how government was going to run the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do." She then spoke about liberty, individual rights, and government — a response for which the audience member was apparently prepared.

"In the year 2023, it's astonishing to me that you answered that question without mentioning the word 'slavery,'" the audience member told Haley.

"What do you want me to say about slavery?" she responded.

"You answered my question, thank you," the man replied.

In a Thursday interview with a New Hampshire radio show, Haley responded to the bipartisan whiplash over her answer and acknowledged the obvious.

"Of course, the Civil War was about slavery," she said, going on to clarify why she spoke about individual rights and the role of government. "Yes, I know it was about slavery. I'm from the South."

The former South Carolina governor then alleged the audience member was planted by President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to make her look bad.

"Biden and the Democrats keep sending Democrat plants to do things like this, to get the media to react. We know when they're there. We know what they're doing," she said.

According to Haley, the Democratic Party machine is targeting her because they believe she will handily defeat Biden in a general election and therefore want to sink her campaign to ensure that Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination.

Haley, moreover, claimed she recognized the audience member as a "plant," which is why she tried to turn the question around on him.

"It was definitely a Democrat plant," she said. "That's why I said, 'What does it mean to you?' And if you notice, he didn’t answer anything. The same reason he didn't tell the reporters what his name was. The same reason he went and showed the guy that he was with the tweet that went up after he did it.

"We see these guys when they come [to our events]. We know what they're doing, and we know from the second they ask the question. If you look at the last swing I did in New Hampshire, there was one at every single town hall. This is what they do. And I'm trying to turn the questions back on them," she said.

Haley, however, did not offer any evidence to back her claims.

According to the New Hampshire Journal, the audience member later told reporters that he asked the question because he knew that Haley was asked the same question more than a decade ago and wanted to see how she would answer today.

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