Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis say the U.S. is not a racist country

As Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis battle for second place in the GOP presidential race behind former President Donald Trump, both said on Tuesday that the U.S. is not a racist country.  

When asked if the Republican party is racist during a Fox & Friends interview on Tuesday, Haley said, “No, we’re — we’re not a racist country. Brian. We’ve never been a racist country. Our goal is to make sure that today is better than yesterday. Are we perfect? No, but our goal is to always make sure we try and be more perfect if every day that we can.” 

The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. added that she faced racism growing up “but I can tell you today is a lot better than it was.”

DeSantis was asked if he agreed with Haley’s comments later on Tuesday during a CNN town hall and echoed her sentiment that “the U.S. is not a racist country.”

When pressed on if the U.S. has ever been a racist country, DeSantis conceded that the U.S. has had “challenges with how race was viewed,” citing the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court case, which ruled that African Americans were not American citizens.

In that decision, which  was handed down by the nation’s highest court before the Civil War and protected the institution of slavery, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney wrote that African Americans “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

“That was wrong. That was discriminating on the basis of race. That’s why you ended up having the 14th Amendment ratified to overturn Dred Scott. So yes, we’ve had challenges with how we’ve dealt with race as a society. But we are the — no matter where what your background is. If you have one place you want to grow up and have the most opportunity, it doesn’t matter your background, this is the best place to grow up,” DeSantis said.

It is not the first time that Haley or DeSantis have had to address America’s racial issues on the campaign trail. 

Haley received criticism last month when she failed to mention slavery as the cause of the civil war and DeSantis previously defended Florida school curriculum teaching that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”