Did Nikki Haley Say the Confederate Flag Represented ‘Service, Sacrifice, and Heritage’?

On Sunday, journalist Soledad O’Brien claimed former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley described the Confederate flag as representing “service, sacrifice and heritage.”

The quote in question comes from a 2019 interview Haley did with Glenn Beck. And Haley did say those words. While discussing the 2015 shooting at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Haley, who had been governor at the time, told Beck:

“Here is this guy that comes out with his manifesto, holding the Confederate flag and had just hijacked everything that people thought of it. We don’t have hateful people in South Carolina. There’s always the small minority that’s always going to be there, but you know people saw it as service and sacrifice and heritage. But once he did that there was no way to overcome it.”