Haley supports removing Confederate flag from Citadel

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley said Thursday she would support lawmakers approving the removal of a Confederate flag from a Citadel chapel to a nearby museum.

But Haley said she does not support the state lengthening a federal three-day waiting period to complete background checks before gun purchases.

At the urging of Republican Haley, S.C. legislators removed the Confederate flag from the State House grounds last summer after a self-avowed racist, who had posed with the flag, was charged with slaying nine parishioners of Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church.

Subsequently, some legislators have called on the state to close the so-called “Charleston loophole,” which allows guns to be purchased if a background check has not been completed in three days.

Dylann Roof, accused of shooting and killing nine African-Americans churchgoers in Charleston last June, was able to buy a gun because the three-day waiting period ran out before a background check had been completed accurately. Roof should have been barred from buying a gun because of an undiscovered pending drug charge, federal officials said.

Speaking to reporters Thursday in her office as the anniversary of the Charleston massacre draws near, Haley blamed the federal background-check process for the gun sale, adding expanding the waiting period for background checks would not solve the problem.

"You can expand it multiple days, but if you don't fix the system, ... none of this matters. If I give you six more days, how are you going to prove to me that it's going to fix it?"

Haley said she’s concerned with “How do we make sure this doesn’t happen again?”

But gun-control measures have not come up in her talks with legislators or the family of the church shooting.

“With the families that I talk to, it’s more personal. We talk more about what they’re going through and their faith and the hardships.”

The Charleston church shooting also added vigor to an effort to remove the Confederate flag from a Citadel chapel, something U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia, tried recently without success to push at the federal level.

Haley said she has told Citadel cadets that if they want to remove the flag, they need to call their legislators. A state law requires legislative approval to remove Confederate monuments and symbols from public spaces.

Haley said sheis not be supportive of other efforts to change buildings named after Confederate figures or make other changes.

The flag was a “flying, living, breathing, representative symbol. ... You can’t have that representation there and have children drive by and think that they don’t belong.”

“If you start to go back in history for SC, you’d be replacing every street sign, every building ... Our goal is not to erase history. Our goal is to make sure every child felt welcome on State House grounds.”

Haley was speaking to reporters ahead of the first anniversary of the June 17 massacre of nine churchgoers in Charleston.

The shootings – and the community's response – prompted Haley to push for the removal of the Confederate flag from the State House grounds, lowered in July.

Speaking at times through tears, Haley said Thursday that not a day goes by that she does not think about what happened on June 17.

Haley said the anniversary, which she will spend in Charleston, is a time to think about the families of the victims, the community and how the state responded in the immediate aftermath.

"What I hope you will do on this (one-) year anniversary (is) remember the families, remember the people, remember all the good and the bad that came out of it, and focus on that," she said. “That's what it is to me.

“The state was forever changed. I see good and bad that came out of June 17,” Haley said. “The bad obviously is that we lost nine people and that three other people have to live with that memory of what happened in that room that night.

“The good side of it was, I've never been more proud of the people in South Carolina. It should restore everyone's faith and goodness in people.”

Haley said South Carolinians learned something about themselves in the aftermath of the shooting “that they didn’t know” – something she credits with bringing down the Confederate flag.

“They all knew that they were a people of faith” and loved their neighbors, she said. “But this was a time that they were actually tested on it.

“They came through showing that that faith and that love that they talk about is real, and it was shown all across the state.”

Wishes Trump rhetoric was different

Haley said divisive rhetoric – like what she has seen in the presidential campaign – is what drives violence like what happened in Charleston.

Hearing that rhetoric from Trump was “the reason I was vocal about it. I know what that rhetoric can do. I saw it happen” with the Charleston shooting, she said.

“Bad things can happen when you have rhetoric like that and people can get hurt.”

Haley endorsed U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida “to show that that's not all of who we are.”

“I don't think that people who support Trump are haters. I don't think that people who support Trump are racists. I think that's a different kind of anger in that they're upset with Washington D.C. They're upset that nothing got done. And that's what this is about.”

But, Haley added, “the way that (Trump) communicates that, I wish were different.”

This story was originally published June 2, 2016 at 6:45 PM with the headline "Haley supports removing Confederate flag from Citadel."