'OMG, she went there': Nikki Haley shocks with 'Black friends' response to slavery gaffe

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley tried to make amends for her slavery gaffe — and seemed to step on yet another rake in the process.

At a CNN town hall in Iowa Thursday night, Haley made an effort to walk back last week’s failure to list slavery as the cause of the Civil War.

“I had Black friends growing up,” she told host Erin Burnett.

And the outraged reaction hit almost immediately.

“OMG. She went there,” posted an X user called Yoda4 Sanity.

“She invoked a trope used by racists everywhere to defend their racist views,” wrote another user, Justin Higgins.

Burnett had asked Haley directly about her response at a New Hampshire town hall last week when she was asked what caused the Civil War.

“I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do,” she answered.

Her failure to mention slavery saw her buried by opponents, onlookers and civil rights leaders.

On Thursday, she told Burnett, “I should have said slavery right off the bat, but if you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery. You grow up and you have, you know, I had Black friends growing up. It is a very talked about thing. We have a big history in South Carolina when it comes to slavery, when it comes to all the things that happened with the Civil War."

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“I was thinking past slavery, and talking about the lesson that we would learn going forward. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have said slavery. But, in my mind, that’s a given. Everybody associates the Civil War with slavery.”

Her Black friends comment was derided by an analyst on the network hosting the event, who said it was like “cleaning up with a dirty rag.”

“This should not be hard for a woman of color in this day and age, to talk with real power and force about how awful slavery was and how important it is for us as a country to get past it and deal with it and confront it, so we can be better,” Van Jones continued.

“She’s talking to all the other bigots who think that’s an acceptable answer and will vote for her,” wrote X user David Lytle.

And Jemele Hill wrote, “Gotta give it to her .. she is truly committed to having the worst answers on this topic."

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