“I don’t think that this is going to be easy. I don’t think that it’s going to be painless,” Haley told TODAY on Saturday in her first network interview since calling for the flag’s removal. “But I do think that it will be respectful, and that it will move swiftly.”

The Confederate flag has flown in South Carolina’s capital since 1961. Removing the Civil War-era icon requires a two-thirds vote from both chambers of the General Assembly — no easy feat in a state steeped in Southern tradition.

On Friday, pro-Confederate robocalls went out to some homes in South Carolina calling on voters to contact their state representative to “not stand with leftist fanatics who want to destroy the South,” reported The Herald newspaper in South Carolina.