In 2015, a white supremacist entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina during a prayer service and shot and killed several people—with the goal, he confessed, of starting a race war. Within weeks, then governor Nikki Haley ordered the Confederate flag atop the statehouse to be taken down, saying after its removal that “it should have never been there” in the first place. “There is a place for that flag,” she said at the time. “It’s not in a place that represents all people in South Carolina.”

That decision helped cement Haley as a rising star in the Republican party, and later played into the impression that she was a different type of Republican than Donald Trump, for whom she served as envoy to the United Nations. Yet in an interview with Glenn Beck that circulated Friday, Haley elaborated on her thoughts around the incident. The flag, she said, was seen by some as a symbol of “service and sacrifice and heritage” until the church massacre. “Here is this guy that comes out with his manifesto holding the Confederate flag, and just hijacked everything people thought of,” Haley said. “Once he did that, there was no way to overcome it.” She added, “We don’t have hateful people in South Carolina.”

Haley’s comments were largely seen as a continuation of her efforts to tie herself irrevocably to the president. Her biography, With All Due Respect, cast a rosy glow over her time in the Trump administration, and her book tour essentially constituted a live homage to Trump. “In every instance that I dealt with him, he was truthful, he listened, and he was great to work with,” she said at one point, at another chiding ex chief of staff John Kelly and former secretary of State Rex Tillerson for going against Trump’s wishes.

Haley’s flag comments could have been worse; she could have told Beck that “many sides” were to blame for the Charleston shooting, as her former boss did in 2017. In casting the flag as interpreted—by some!—as a unifying symbol co-opted by a murderer, however, and by chastising national media for trying to “make this about racism,” she undercut much of what she got right about the tragedy when it happened four years ago.

Her choice of phrasing around the controversy could be pure coincidence. But, like so much of what has shaped Haley’s political trajectory, it is likely deliberate. While the rumors that Haley is hoping to replace Mike Pence on Trump’s re-election ticket have died down somewhat—my colleague Gabriel Sherman reported last week that Haley “had made the determination that joining the ticket, or even replacing Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, would be a net negative for her 2024 ambitions”—she still reportedly sees value in tying herself to his principles. “Nikki is running in 2024 come hell or high water,” a former West Wing official told Sherman. “If Trump loses, she’s already positioned herself as his heir apparent. Why not suck up to Trump?”

— Wildly incriminating emails show the White House knew Trump was extorting Ukraine
— Is Rudy Giuliani truly in trouble?
— The secret life and strange death of Quadriga cofounder, Gerald Cotten
— The hunt for Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged enabler Ghislaine Maxwell
— New polling suggests Democrats’ impeachment push could alienate key voters
— From the Archive: Inside Jeffrey Wigand’s epic multibillion-dollar struggle

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.