Nikki Haley hits back at CNN anchor who claimed she 'whitewashed' US racism: 'Liberal media can't stand it when someone black or brown' lauds America

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Thursday hit back at comments from CNN "New Day" anchor Brianna Keilar who said Haley "whitewashed" American racism, Fox News reported.

What's the background?

Haley gave a speech Tuesday at the Reagan Presidential Library in which she said, "Take it from me, the first female and minority governor of South Carolina, America is not a racist country… As a brown girl growing up in a small southern town, I saw the promise of America unfold before me," the cable network noted in a previous story.

Keilar criticized Haley on Wednesday, saying she "whitewashed the ups and downs of the American experience with racism and the challenges still ahead, all apparently to appeal to the conservative base," Fox News added.

'Sounds like I hit a nerve'

With that, Fox News' Harris Faulkner asked Haley about Keilar's attempted kill shots, and Haley delivered some stinging counter-punches — all without mentioning the name of the openly left-wing anchor:

"Well, it sounds like I hit a nerve. Secondly, it's amazing to me how the liberal media can't stand it when someone black or brown happens to talk about the fact that America is the best country in the world. The fact that we are blessed to be free and blessed to live in America. I'm gonna keep saying it. We should all talk about the blessings of America. We're not a perfect country, but every day our focus is to make today better than yesterday. And that's how I was raised. I was raised to have hope. I was raised in America, did have challenges as we were going, but I also was raised to live and see that me [in] a brown family in a small southern rural town, the people when they used to whisper about us or used to exclude us. I saw something very American happen because they started to smile at us. They started to talk to us, and they welcomed us in. And that's the part of America that I was raised in; that's the part of America I'm proud of. And that same state elected me as the first female and first minority governor. And you can't say that we're a racist country. You just can't — and they can't stand it when a brown Republican says that."