Nikki Haley calls for return to faith during Iowa event

Presidential candidate Nikki Haley had a simple solution for the nation’s problems during a faith and family event in Iowa last weekend. “We’ve lost that faith in God, faith in the American people, faith in our spirit and we need to go back to that,” she said.

Haley appeared at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition Town Hall in West Des Moines, where she participated in a question-and-answer event with former Gov. Terry Branstad in Indianola and met with Iowa faith leaders.

“Let’s go back to the time when our parents raised us to be responsible individuals, where we went to school and learned how to be successful and where we went to church and we found our faith and our conscience,” she said. “We need to go back to that.  We’re going to keep talking about that, because we have a country to save and we can’t do it without faith.”

The event also featured several other GOP presidential candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and businessman Perry Johnson.

During her time serving as South Carolina’s governor, Haley said, she was deeply affected after a white supremacist shot and killed nine black members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston during a Bible study.

“I remember one day getting on my knees and saying, ‘God, I can’t do this by myself. I need you,’” she said. “And the strength and grace that he showed me, I will tell you, was a defining moment in my life. Because it was the only way that I was able to pull through and get through it.”

Among many topics appealing to Iowa’s faith community, Haley also stood firm on the issue of abortion, telling the crowd, “You have to speak hard truths” on the controversial topic and that the American people “deserve the truth.”

“I am unapologetically pro-life, not because the Republican Party tells me to be but because my husband was adopted, and I had trouble having both of my children,” she told Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition during the banquet’s last sit-down interview. “I am surrounded by miracles and blessings.”

–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice