Nikki Haley Calls ‘The View’ Host Sunny Hostin ‘Racist’ for Questioning Former Governor’s Choice of First Name

Josh Dickey
·2 min read
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News flash: Nikki Haley watches “The View”?

OK, that may or may not be true, but the ABC talk show got on the radar of the former South Carolina governor and diplomat Tuesday when host Sunny Hostin questioned the first name Haley has chosen to go by since childhood.

The Republican politician, who served as governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017 before becoming President Trump’s appointee as ambassador to the United Nations, was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa in South Carolina to Indian Punjabi Sikh parents. She came up on “The View” Tuesday as co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin was naming potential Republican 2024 presidential candidates.

“What is her real name again?” Hostin said, adding that she thought Haley should “lean into” her heritage to be a more “authentic” candidate.

“So, Nikki Haley’s gone by Nikki since she was a child,” Farah Griffin said. “It’s documented in high school. I wouldn’t be shocked that somebody, an Indian woman growing up in South Carolina at that time, she actually did that to avoid prejudice.”

Hostin replied: “There are some of us that can be chameleons and decide not to embrace our ethnicity so that we can pass.”

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That’s where Sara Haines jumped in: “Sunny, I don’t think that’s fair, you go by a different name!”

Conceding that point, Hostin, born Asunción Cummings, said: “That’s because most Americans can’t pronounce Asunción because of the under-education in our society.”

“I’m just going to kill this conversation. I am authentically myself. I am Whoopi Goldberg. I will be right back,” said another co-host (whose birth name was Caryn Elaine Johnson), shutting the discussion down.

But by then the damage was done. The exchange found its way to Haley, who went on the attack on Twitter:

“Thanks for your concern @Sunny,” she wrote. “It’s racist of you to judge my name. Nikki is an Indian name and is on my birth certificate — and I’m proud of that. What’s sad is the left’s hypocrisy towards conservative minorities. By the way, last I checked Sunny isn’t your birth name … .”

Which, to be fair, might be read as one saying “What’s her real name again?”