Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee is a former governor of Arkansas and an evangelical pastor who has a penchant for making absurd and bigoted claims. For instance, in June 2018, Huckabee tweeted a photo of a group of heavily tattooed Hispanic men apparently making gang signals, and commented: “Nancy Pelosi introduces her campaign committee for the take back of the House.” (A Huckabee Twitter follower tweeted in response: “Stuff exactly like this is why i am no longer Republican. When the republican party decided to stoop this low. I knew it was time to change because their morals and values no longer reflect mine. Thanks for the awesome reminder of that, Mr. Huckabee.”)

In 2008 and 2016, Huckabee ran for the Republican presidential nomination. In his first run, Huckabee surprised many observers when he won the second largest number of delegates behind eventual Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).[1] Huckabee dropped out of the 2016 race after a dismal performance during Iowa caucuses, which he won in 2008.[2]

An avowed Christian evangelical, Huckabee argues that Americans must fear God if people in other parts of the world are to fear America. “I never want this country to get to the place where people do not fear the United States of America. But I don’t want to get to the place where this country does not fear God because if we don’t fear God, nobody will fear us,” he said at a 2014 Florida event. Huckabee went on to proclaim that the United States was founded by God. “God help us all when we cannot understand that a nation that has turned its back on our Founder—and I’m not talking about George Washington, I’m talking about the fact that this nation would not exist apart from the intervention and providence of a Holy God.”[3]

In October 2017, Huckabee kicked off his show on the right-wing, evangelical Trinity Broadcasting Network by interviewing Donald Trump, the first one-on-one interview Trump had done in five months. Commenting on the interview, writers for Media Matters for Americaobserved, “Huckabee gave Trump a predictably friendly platform to talk about what a great job he is doing and complain about the ‘fake’ media. Huckabee’s questions and remarks to Trump included such softballs as: ‘You were a rock star [in Puerto Rico], I saw the video of it’; and ‘You have a lot of things out there on the horizon, including North Korea and Kim Jong Un—or as you like to call him, Rocket Man, which I thought was a great moniker.’”[4]

After Trump’s controversial summit with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un in June 2018, Huckabee praised the president even while questions about Trump’s performance swirled. “He has proven time and again to be right when everyone—even the people around him—thought he was wrong,” Huckabee said.

“I think something will happen and Kim Jong Un understands that if he wants to continue to be the leader of North Korea, he gives up nuclear weapons. If he doesn’t give them up, they will be taken from him and it will not be pretty.”[5]

Huckabee’s daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is Trump’s press secretary. After a highly publicized incident where she was politely asked to leave a restaurant because the staff and ownership felt uncomfortable serving her, Huckabee said, “For the first time, I worry [about my daughter] because of the things that (Democratic Representative) Maxine Waters says. I worry because you have people on other networks who say that anyone who supports Trump is a Nazi or they’re a racist.”[6]

Huckabee was a vociferous critic of President Barack Obama. In early 2015, he wildly claimed: “Everything he does is against what Christians stand for, and he’s against the Jews in Israel. The one group of people that can know they have his undying, unfailing support would be the Muslim community. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the radical Muslim community or the more moderate Muslim community.”[7]

Huckabee has gone so far as to urge young Americans not to serve in the military until Obama leaves office. “Wait a couple of years until we get a new commander-in-chief that will once again believe ‘one nation under God,’ and believe that people of faith should be a vital part of the process of not only governing this country, but defending this country,” Huckabee told a talk-radio host in April 2015.[8]

In a November 2015 interview, Huckabee claimed that Obama is “more interested in protecting the reputation of Islam than he is the American people.”[9]

Huckabee has also claimed that President Obama was raised in Kenya, saying in 2011: “His perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya, is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”[10]

After President Obama issued an executive order on bolstering the background check system on gun sales in January 2015, Huckabee declared: “Americans should go out and buy a new gun—and to improve your accuracy, you can take aim at Washington stupidity, blow holes in ridiculous government programs and shred our unfair tax code with a customized shooting target.”[11]

His words spurred sharp criticism, including from the Des Moines Register, which opined: “Regardless of whether Huckabee meant to imply that citizens should take up arms to express their dissatisfaction with the president, he should have known that’s precisely the message some individuals would take from it. We expect more from presidential candidates, particularly those who wear their piety on their sleeve.”

2016 Presidential Campaign

After his 2008 campaign, Huckabee maintained a high public profile by joining Fox Newsas a pundit. “He built himself into a political force as a governor and presidential candidate, and then cashed in on his celebrity to become a pundit. Now that he wants to get back into politics, he’s doing it as a conservative pundit would: by appealing to the petty resentments of his party’s base and generating headlines with ‘outrageous’ remarks,” commented Salon.[12]

Like many of the candidates in the 2016 GOP primary—including Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, and Donald Trump—Huckabee staked out staunchly militarist and interventionist positions on foreign policy. He claimed that “America’s leadership in the world has completely evaporated” under Obama and declared that if elected he would “lead with moral clarity in a dangerous world” and “conquer” jihadism.[13]

After failing to register many votes in the Iowa caucuses, an evangelical stronghold, Huckabee suspended his campaign. “I am officially suspending my campaign. Thank you for all your loyal support,” he tweeted at the time.[14]He was rumored to be weighing an endorsement of Donald Trump, though when asked about it the former governor said “that’s nonsense.”[15]

Foreign Policy Views

In January 2018, Huckabee took a trip to Qatar, while that country remained embroiled in a stalemate with more prominent U.S. allies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Upon his return, Huckabee tweeted, “Just back from a few days in surprisingly beautiful, modern, and hospitable Doha, Qatar I will appear on @FoxNews at 9am ET and @Varneyco on @FoxBusiness at 8:45 to bring Fancy Nancy some “crumbs” to sprinkle on her caviar topped @FiveGuys burger.”

The trip and the tweet seemed odd, coming from Huckabee. One of the points of contention between Qatar and its fellow Persian Gulf states is Qatari support for groups of which the others do not approve, including the Palestinian militant group, Hamas. For someone as staunchly supportive of Israel as Huckabee to ignore this issue was surprising.

The explanation came months later, in June 2018, when it was revealed that Huckabee had been paid $50,000 for the trip and a positive comment, as part of Qatar’s attempt to establish warm relations with U.S. right-wing supporters of Israel. As Mother Jonesdescribed it, “Joseph Allaham, a former owner of kosher steakhouses in New York, retroactively registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for Qatar. In the paperwork disclosing his activity on behalf of the Qatari government, Allaham noted that he had paid $50,000 on November 23, 2017, to Blue Diamond Horizons, a Florida corporation run by Huckabee. The filing stated that Huckabee received this money as an ‘honorarium for visit.’ And the $50,000 payment, according to the disclosure, came from the $1.45 million Qatar had paid Allaham in part for ‘community engagement’ to benefit Qatar—actions that included making ‘charitable contributions and arranging meetings in the United States and visits to Qatar.’”[16]

Huckabee, who believes that “God has protected” Israel, is described by theWashington Postas “nuts about Israel.”[17]He has travelled to Israel so many times that he “can’t remember how many trips exactly.” He is also closely affiliated with several hardline “pro-Israel” groups. In 2015, he was a featured speaker at the annual summit of the right-wing evangelical Christians United for Israel in Washington.[18]During a 2015 trip to Israel, Huckabee organized an event with Morton Klein of the hawkish Zionist Organization of America, who told the group that there is no “such thing as the ‘Palestinians.’”[19] One observer opined about Huckabee’s tour, “The view that was reinforced for [participants] on this trip is one that rejects peace in favor of Israeli domination of another people and offers no sympathy for civilians harmed on a daily basis by the ongoing conflict and occupation.”[20]

Huckabee praised the decision by Donald Trump to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, tweeting on the day of the move, “By LAW, our embassy is supposed to be in Jerusalem, the rightful capital of Israel. It’s that @realDonaldTrump had the guts to follow that law. I’m in Israel for event, wonder if CNN will be?”[21]

Huckabee’s passion for Israel has occasionally led him astray, while also revealing the limited knowledge of a country he speaks about so often and visits frequently. In the wake of a devastating school shooting in Florida, Huckabee tweeted, “Just waking up in Israel to news of heartbreaking school shooting in FL; Reminded that Israel pretty much eliminated it by placing highly trained people strategically to spot the one common thread–not the weapon, but a person with intent.”[22]

In response, Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas tweeted, “No Governor, Israel NEVER had such a problem. We don’t worship guns, we don’t sell assault rifles to people, we don’t have a genius creation like the NRA, we don’t regard every bunch of guys (as) a ‘well regulated militia’ and we’re pretty much done fighting the British.”[23]

Nathan Guttman, an Israeli reporter, also chimed in. “Israel does indeed base its homeland security strategy on professionals—police officers, soldiers and intense intelligence gathering. But it is far from giving a free pass to anyone else wishing to purchase or carry a gun. If Israel is an example of a country that managed to keep gun violence down, it is precisely because of its restrictive gun rules. Comparative data from 2013 shows that the rate of guns in the hands of civilians in Israel is less than a tenth of that in America. Correspondently, so is the rate of gun deaths. For every 100,000 people, the United States had 10.3 gun deaths. Israel had only 1.6.”[24]

An opponent of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he describes as “irrational and unworkable,”[25] Huckabee berated President Obama for purportedly “putting more pressure on our ally Israel to cease building bedrooms for their families in Judea and Samaria than we do on Iran for building a bomb,” using the preferred nomenclature of the Jewish settler movement for the Occupied West Bank.[26]

Regarding a potential future Palestinian state, Huckabee has said: “If there’s a two-state solution, the Palestinian state needs to be outside the boundaries of the nation of Israel. There’s plenty of land in the world where we can find a place and say, ‘Okay, let’s create a Palestinian state.’”[27]

In August 2015, Huckabee claimed that the West Bank is not “occupied,” stating: “That makes it appear as if someone is illegally taking land. I don’t see it that way.”[28]

Quipped CNN’s Jeremy Diamond: “Huckabee’s statements—during a trip to Israel—fly in the face of international law and longstanding U.S. policy, which consider the West Bank as occupied territory and the construction of additional settlements in that territory illegal.”[29]

Huckabee also opposed the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, deriding them as “terrible” and likening a diplomatic settlement with Iran to giving a “pyromaniac” a “10-gallon gas can and a book of matches.”[30] After a comprehensive nuclear deal was reached between Iran and the P5+1 world powers in July 2015, Huckabee spurred widespread criticism for claiming the deal would “take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”[31]

His comments were condemned by numerous Jewish organizations, including the staunchly “pro-Israel” Anti-Defamation League, which said the remarks were “completely out of line and unacceptable.”[32] The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) issued a strong denunciation of Huckabee as well, saying his comments “may be the most inexcusable we’ve encountered in recent memory.” An NJDC statement added: “To state that President Obama is leading Israelis ‘to the door of the oven’ is not only disgustingly offensive to the president and the White House, but shows utter, callous disregard for the millions of lives lost in the Shoah and to the pain still felt by their descendants today.”[33] Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, a staunch right-winger closely allied to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also stated that he did not think Huckabee’s comments were “appropriate.”[34]

According to one observer at the time: “Some pundits have questioned whether Huckabee’s recent comments were part of an attempt to ratchet up the rhetoric to get noticed by potential voters, who according to polls favor Donald Trump.”[35] Similarly, President Obama said of the remarks: “When you get rhetoric like this, maybe it gets attention, and maybe it’s just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines, but it’s not the kind of leadership that’s needed for America right now.”[36]

In a November 2015 interview with rightwing radio host Hugh Hewitt, Huckabee referred to the Iran nuclear deal as the “most disastrous and dangerous deal in the history of the United States.”[37]

During the same interview, he expressed support for Russian military intervention in Syria. “If he’s [Russian President Vladimir Putin] he’s willing to shoot at the same people we’re wanting to shoot at, good. We have a common target … if Putin is willing to help us eradicate radical Islam from the face of the Earth, then on that, he’s our friend. He may not be our friend on the invasion of Crimea, or the taking of Ukraine, or other desires to expand. But those are arguments for another time.”[38]

Huckabee has also voiced opposition to the Obama administration’s efforts at détente with Cuba, even though he supported lifting the Cuban embargo as Arkansas governor in 2002 on the basis that it would have helped rice farmers in his state.[39]

SOURCES

[1]James Lindsay, “Campaign 2016: Mike Huckabee, GOP Presidential Candidate,” Council on Foreign Relations, May 5, 2015, http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2015/05/05/campaign-2016-mike-huckabee-gop-presidential-candidate/.

[2]Clare Foran, “Why Mike Huckabee Lost in 2016,” The Atlantic, February 2, 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/mike-huckabee-2016/459342/.

[3]Kyle Mantyla, “President Huckabee’s Foreign Policy? ‘If We Don’t Fear God, Nobody Will Fear US,’” Right Wing Watch, January 30, 2015, http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/president-huckabees-foreign-policy-if-we-dont-fear-god-nobody-will-fear-us.

[4]Media Matters for America, “Mike Huckabee’s Trump interview was ridiculous,” October 7, 2017, https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/10/07/mike-huckabees-trump-interview-was-ridiculous/218173

[5]Fox News Insider, “Huckabee Praises Trump for NoKo Progress: He’s ‘Decided to Throw Convention Out the Window,’” June 17, 2018, http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/06/17/president-trump-north-korea-summit-mike-huckabee-praises-trump-unconventional-action

[6]Arutz Sheva, “Mike Huckabee: I worry about my daughter,” Israel National News, June 26, 2018, https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/248036

[7]James Lindsay, “Campaign 2016: Mike Huckabee, GOP Presidential Candidate,” Council on Foreign Relations, May 5, 2015, http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2015/05/05/campaign-2016-mike-huckabee-gop-presidential-candidate/.

[8]Alexandra Jaffe, “Huckabee: Wait until Obama is out of office before joining the military,” CNN, April 20, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/20/politics/huckabee-obama-administration-hostility-christians/.

[9]Hugh Hewitt, “Gov. Mike Huckabee On Obama’s Failed Foreign Policy and Advice On Syria/ISIS,” November 19, 2015, http://www.hughhewitt.com/gov-mike-huckabee-obamas-failed-foreign-policy-advice-syriaisis/.

[10]Roger Simon, “Huckabee: No More Mr. Nice Guy,” Politico, May 6, 2015, http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/mike-huckabee-2016-roger-simon-117659.html.

[11]Des Moines Register, “Roses & Thistles: Huckabee shoots off his mouth,” January 11, 2016, http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/01/11/roses-thistles-huckabee-shoots-off-his-mouth/78516576/.

[12]Simon Maloy, “GOP’s ‘scam artist’ problem: Mike Huckabee & the right’s tradition of organized theft,” Salon, March 17, 2015, http://www.salon.com/2015/03/17/gops_scam_artist_problem_mike_huckabee_the_rights_tradition_of_organized_theft/.

[13]James Lindsay, “Campaign 2016: Mike Huckabee, GOP Presidential Candidate,” Council on Foreign Relations, May 5, 2015, http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2015/05/05/campaign-2016-mike-huckabee-gop-presidential-candidate/.

[14]Clare Foran, “Why Mike Huckabee Lost in 2016,” The Atlantic, February 2, 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/mike-huckabee-2016/459342/.

[15]Newsmax, “Mike Huckabee on Rumored Trump Endorsement: ‘That’s Nonsense,’” 1 February 2016, http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/mike-huckabee-rumors-donald-trump-endorsement/2016/02/01/id/712218/

[16]Dan Friedman, “Mike Huckabee Praised Qatar Without Revealing He Was Paid $50,000 by Qatar,” Mother Jones, June 19, 2018, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/06/mike-huckabee-praised-qatar-without-revealing-he-was-paid-50000-by-qatar/

[17]Alana Marie Burke, “Mike Huckabee 2016: 7 Key Political Positions of GOP Presidential Hopeful,” Newsmax, December 22, 2014, http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/mike-huckabee-2016-key/2014/12/22/id/614484/.

[18]Christians United for Israel, “Summit,” http://www.cufi.org/site/PageServer?pagename=2015Summit_Speakers#Huckabee.

[19]William Booth, “Mike Huckabee, tour guide in the Holy Land,” The Washington Post, February 23, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mike-huckabee-tour-guide-in-the-holy-land/2015/02/22/f0395335-1716-4f7f-9ce6-5e12c781d823_story.html.

[20]Mitchell Plitnick, “Washington Post Gives Huckabee A Platform On Israel,” Facts on the Ground, February 25, 2015, https://fmep.org/blog/2015/02/washington-post-gives-huckabee-platform-israel/

[21]Mike Huckabee, Twitter, May 14, 2018, https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/995897984486379520

[22]Mike Huckabee, Twitter, February 14, 2018, https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/963991647200661505

[23]Alon Pinkas, Twitter, February 14, 2018, https://twitter.com/AlonPinkas/status/964133280147804160

[24]Nathan Guttman, “FACT CHECK: Israel Does Not Have An Armed Citizenry, Mr. Huckabee,” Forward, February 16, 2018, https://forward.com/news/national/394674/fact-check-israel-does-not-have-an-armed-citizenry-mr-huckabee/

[25]Andrew Kaczynski and Megan Apper, “Huckabee: Two-State Solution Is ‘Irrational, Unworkable’ — Room For Palestinian State Elsewhere,” Buzzfeed, June 1, 2015, http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/huckabee-two-state-solution-is-irrational-unworkable-plenty#.tpVyy64YB.

[26]Trip Gabriel, “Mike Huckabee Joins Republican Presidential Race,” The New York Times, May 5, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/us/politics/mike-huckabee-running-in-republican-presidential-primary.html.

[27]Andrew Kaczynski and Megan Apper, “Huckabee: Two-State Solution Is ‘Irrational, Unworkable’ — Room For Palestinian State Elsewhere,” Buzzfeed, June 1, 2015, http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/huckabee-two-state-solution-is-irrational-unworkable-plenty#.tpVyy64YB.

[28]Jeremy Diamond, “In Israel, Huckabee goes against longstanding U.S. policy,” CNN, August 20, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/20/politics/mike-huckabee-israel-west-bank/.

[29]Jeremy Diamond, “In Israel, Huckabee goes against longstanding U.S. policy,” CNN, August 20, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/20/politics/mike-huckabee-israel-west-bank/.

[30]James Lindsay, “Campaign 2016: Mike Huckabee, GOP Presidential Candidate,” Council on Foreign Relations, May 5, 2015, http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2015/05/05/campaign-2016-mike-huckabee-gop-presidential-candidate/.

[31]Martin Pengelly, “Huckabee defends claim that Iran deal will ‘march Israelis to oven door,’” The Guardian,  July 26, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/huckabee-iran-nuclear-deal-obama-marching-israelis-to-door-of-the-oven.

[32]Michael Walsh, “Mike Huckabee stands behind Holocaust comment as backlash continues,” Yahoo, July 28, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/huckabee-iran-nuclear-deal-obama-marching-israelis-to-door-of-the-oven.

[33]Martin Pengelly, “Huckabee defends claim that Iran deal will ‘march Israelis to oven door,’” The Guardian,  July 26, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/huckabee-iran-nuclear-deal-obama-marching-israelis-to-door-of-the-oven.

[34]Susan Page, “Israeli envoy: Huckabee words on Iran deal inappropriate,” USA Today, July 27, 2015, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/07/27/israeli-envoy-ron-dermer-huckabee-iran-deal-obama/30740689/.

[35]Eun Kyung Kim, “Mike Huckabee on Holocaust remark: The Jewish response has been ‘overwhelmingly positive,’” Today, July 28, 2015, http://www.today.com/news/mike-huckabee-doubles-down-holocaust-remark-we-need-use-strong-t34966.

[36]Igor Bobic, “Obama Slams Huckabee Over Iran Comments,” Huffington Post, July 27, 2015, http://www.today.com/news/mike-huckabee-doubles-down-holocaust-remark-we-need-use-strong-t34966.

[37]Hugh Hewitt, “Gov. Mike Huckabee On Obama’s Failed Foreign Policy and Advice On Syria/ISIS,” November 19, 2015, http://www.hughhewitt.com/gov-mike-huckabee-obamas-failed-foreign-policy-advice-syriaisis/.

[38]Hugh Hewitt, “Gov. Mike Huckabee On Obama’s Failed Foreign Policy and Advice On Syria/ISIS,” November 19, 2015, http://www.hughhewitt.com/gov-mike-huckabee-obamas-failed-foreign-policy-advice-syriaisis/.

[39]Gerry Mullany, “Mike Huckabee on the Issues,” The New York Times, May 5, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/us/politics/mike-huckabee-on-the-issues.html.