Washington (CNN) Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said in an interview released this week that the man who killed black parishoners at a church in her state "hijacked" the meaning of the Confederate battle flag for people who felt it meant "sacrifice and heritage."

Haley, in an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck, revisited the conversation around her decision in 2015 to remove the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina statehouse after the shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Haley was widely praised for removing the flag

Haley, who also served as ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, was asked about the flag by Beck, who noted that "South Carolinians supported (her) movement to take the flag off of the flagpoles and lower that and get it out."

"How do you do that?" he asks the former governor in the interview, which was released Thursday.

"This was one of the oldest African American churches -- these 12 people were amazing people, they loved their church, they loved their family, they loved their community," Haley replied, referring to nine people who Dylann Roof killed in June 2015. "And here is this guy that comes out with this manifesto, holding the Confederate flag and had just hijacked everything that people thought of (about the flag)."

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