2024 GOP hopeful Nikki Haley said Tuesday that racism is not an excuse for her third-place finish in Iowa.
“I mean, yes, I’m a brown girl who grew up in a small rural town in South Carolina who became the first female minority governor in history, who became a U.N. ambassador, and who is now running for president,” Haley said told Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade in response to Joy Reid’s allegation that she lost due to racism within the GOP.
“If that’s not the American dream, I don’t know what is. You can sit there and give me all the reasons why you think I can’t do this, I will continue to defy everybody on why we can do this, and we will get it done.”
Reid was quick to argue Monday that former President Donald Trump’s victory over Haley in Iowa was the product of the latter’s skin color.
“The elephant in the room … she’s still a brown lady that’s got to try to win in a party that is deeply anti-immigrant,” the MSNBC host said on caucus night. “It’s still a challenge. I don’t see how she becomes the nominee of that party with Donald Trump still around. I can’t picture it happening.”
“Ron DeSantis’s only argument for staying in it is he’s the white guy that he can still make the appeal.”
Haley responded to Reid’s allegations by stating that the MSNBC host lives in a “different America” and the GOP is not a racist party.
“We’re not a racist country,” the former governor said from her New Hampshire stoop. “We’ve never been a racist country. Our goal is to make sure today is better than yesterday.”
“I know, I faced racism when I was growing up, but I can tell you, today is a lot better than it was then. Our goal is to lift up everybody, not go and divide people on race or gender or party or anything else … we’ve had enough of that in America.”
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Citizens in the United States need to move past the notion that they are somehow disadvantaged because of the color of their skin or gender, according to Haley.
“I want them to know that, if they work hard, they can do and be anything they want to be in America,” she said.