Nikki Haley is having to defend herself after bizarrely saying she would let Texas secede if she were elected president.
Haley appeared on the Breakfast Club podcast Wednesday to discuss her previous comments on racism, which include insisting that the United States isn’t a racist country while also talking about the racism she endured as an Indian American child in South Carolina.
At one point, host Charlamagne tha God brought up Texas’s standoff with the federal government over the state’s decision to put razor wire along its border with Mexico. Charlamagne asked Haley if, as president, she would use force against Texas if it tried to secede from the country.
“If Texas decides they want to do that, they can do that,” Haley said. “If that whole state says, ‘We don’t want to be part of America anymore,’ I mean, that’s their decision to make.”
But “let’s talk about what’s reality. Texas isn’t going to secede,” Haley added.
Texas lawmakers have often joked about (or seriously discussed) the Lone Star State’s right to secede from the nation. But legally, states do not have the right to secede. The Union victory during the Civil War, and the confederate states’ readmission to the union, set that precedent. The illegality of secession was established by the Supreme Court in 1869.
After receiving backlash for her comments, Haley tried to reverse course. She argued that whether or not she allows a state to secede is irrelevant until a state actually indicates it wants to do so. (She also would need to be elected president first, which is not going so well for her thus far.)
“It’s not about secession,” she told Fox News. “Nobody’s going to do that. That’s not what people are talking about.”
“What they are talking about is why isn’t the president there, keeping Texans safe.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been in a months-long battle with the federal government about the influx of migrants over the state’s southern border. Despite the Supreme Court ruling he has no right to do so, Abbott has instructed the Texas National Guard to erect more concertina wire along the border.
Dozens of conservative governors across the country have publicly backed Abbott, causing some people on the far right to start talking seriously about an impending civil war.
It’s unsurprising that Haley fell back on talking about states’ rights when something related to the Civil War came up. In December, she claimed that the Civil War was caused by a dispute over the role of the federal government, not slavery.