How did Nikki Haley do in her first CNN town hall? ‘Girl, please get a clue,’ one host says

Political commentators say former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley could not properly define the term “woke” and is wrong for her views on transgender issues, following the Republican presidential hopeful’s Sunday town hall on CNN.

Following the town hall, Haley’s campaign team went on to criticize the cable channel’s panelists providing analysis of Haley’s comments.

In an email to reporters following the town hall, Haley’s campaign team said CNN’s “liberal panelists” hit the former ambassador to the United Nations for discussing their preferred topics of race and abortion.

During Sunday’s town hall, Haley discussed the war in Ukraine, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ battle with Disney and transgender issues.

“Nikki Haley is the only presidential candidate talking to real voters on the ground and taking their questions in multiple town halls,” Haley communications director Nachama Soloveichik said in the email to reporters. “She has released conservative policy solutions on a host of issues and addressed many of those issues tonight. Nikki Haley won’t cave to the liberal talking heads, and that’s what voters love about her.”

During the town hall, Haley was asked to define “woke.”

Her response included discussing transgender girls participating in girls’ sports, the military having discussions on whether to use gender pronouns, and whether critical race theory is taught in elementary schools.

“It’s not that people don’t think in America you should live the way you want to live,” Haley said. “I want everybody to live the way they want to live, but stop pushing your views on everybody else. That’s the problem, is they’re starting to push everything on the rest of us.”

Reacting later, CNN commentator Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina state representative, said the term “woke” has been co-opted by conservatives to mean “anything that’s not white, that’s not straight.”

“She was stumbling across the definition,” Sellers said Monday morning on CNN. “She can’t define it, neither can Ron DeSantis. Most Republicans can’t. I really hate the debate, because it’s anti-intellectual, but it’s part of their culture war.”

Sellers said the use of the word “woke” started in the 1920s by Black people talking to one another to be aware in the Deep South “to stay woke politically, stay woke philosophically.”

Sellers referred to Haley as a “white governor” when complimenting her going to the nine funerals of those killed in the 2015 Mother Emanuel AME Church shooting and helping “bridge people together.”

Haley is Indian-American and was the first minority and woman elected governor of South Carolina.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a CNN commentator, said Haley offered a nuanced response to an abortion ban question by pointing out it will take 60 votes for a bill to pass out of the U.S. Senate, which currently do not exist.

“What she talked about is the reality that a federal abortion ban will never be able to pass in the current Senate and Congress as it exists,” Griffin said on “The View” talk show Monday. “So she rejected this notion, and I want the public to hear this because I think there’s fear around it and this notion that someone’s going to come into office, and Republicans are going to absolutely federally outlaw it. ... She wasn’t going to define what she thinks the week threshold should be because elected representatives and states should do that.”

Ana Navarro, a co-host on The View, criticized Haley for calling transgender issues and for saying that transgender females participating in women’s sports is the “women’s issue of our time.”

“It’s not the inequality of women? It’s not the increasing rate of maternal mortality? It’s not equal representation in boardrooms? It’s not sexual harassment? It’s not rape? It’s not education for your children? It’s not gender-based violence?” Navarro said.

Navarro added that very few transgender women are participating in women’s sports. One estimate says it’s less than 100 people in the country of 335 million people.

“You’re telling me that’s the women’s issue of our lifetime?” Navarro said. “Girl, please get a clue.”