Mike Huckabee presidential campaign, 2016/Foreign affairs
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 Mike Huckabee |
Former Governor of Arkansas (1996-2007) Former Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas (1993-1996) |
 Republican candidate: |
2028 • 2024 • 2020 • 2016 |
This page was current as of the 2016 election.
Iran nuclear deal
- During the September 2015 GOP debate, Mike Huckabee opposed the Iran deal, saying it jeopardized “the survival of Western civilization.” He continued, “This threatens Israel immediately, this threatens the entire Middle East, but it threatens the United States of America. And we can't treat a nuclear Iranian government as if it is just some government that would like to have power. This is a government for 36 years has killed Americans, they kidnapped Americans, they have maimed Americans. They have sponsored terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, and they threaten the very essence of Western civilization.”[2]
- Mike Huckabee wrote an op-ed in The Jerusalem Post on August 20, 2015, calling for regime change in Iran. “I would announce on my first day as president that the new policy of the United States is to support freedom in Tehran. I would double-down against Iran with tougher sanctions. Officials within the Iranian government, clerical establishment and military would face a clear choice: They can stay on a sinking ship, or abandon a regime that has outlived its shelf life,” Huckabee stated.[3]
- On August 8, 2015, Huckabee applauded Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for opposing the Iran nuclear deal. “Thank God for Sen. Schumer and his opposition to this reckless nuclear deal with Iran. While I disagree with Sen. Schumer on most things, I applaud him for putting peace in the Middle East above partisan politics. Despite endless arm-twisting and enormous political pressure from the White House, Sen. Schumer chose statesmanship over partisanship,” he said in a statement.[4]
- On July 25, 2015, Huckabee accused President Obama of endangering Israelis by agreeing to the Iran nuclear deal. He said, “This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal. It should be rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and by the American people. I read the whole deal. We gave away the whole store. It’s got to be stopped.”[5]
- To protest the Iran nuclear deal, Huckabee posted a Vine clip on July 21, 2015, featuring The Lion King characters, Simba, Pumbaa and Timon, singing “Hakuna Matata” before being destroyed by a nuclear explosion. Huckabee tweeted, “‘No Worries’ is not a strategy for Iran. Tell Congress to kill the nuclear deal!”[6]
- When asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on July 21, 2015, what his alternative to the Iran nuclear agreement would be as president, Huckabee answered, “The alternative is to take the actions to revoke the agreement, reinstitute the sanctions on Iran, make it clear that this was a terrible deal. It was done in a manner that didn't really have the support of the American people, was not done in the best interest of peace, and that we have a new sheriff in town. And the new sheriff is not going to accept that agreement as one we're going to live with because we can't live with Iran having nuclear power.”[7]
- On April 2, 2015, Mike Huckabee released the following statement on the Iran nuclear deal: "Each and every day, Iran undermines our allies, threatens our vital interests and murders innocent civilians across the globe. John Kerry lacks the judgment, common sense and moral clarity to negotiate any deal, much less Iran, and I am very concerned with the framework of this deal. We should be tightening our grip with the current sanctions not abdicating to the Ayatollah's interests."[8]
Military preparedness and budget
- At the fifth GOP primary debate on December 15, 2015, Mike Huckabee, talked about strengthening the military: “Well, I would say that, if you want a college education, let's go back and reinstate the full-blown G.I. bill. You give something to your country; your country gives something back to you. We need to ask young people to step up and buy their own freedom because there's not going to be enough people left at less than one percent. And as my good friend Ken Howard, former Dean of the War College, has often said, we're fighting all the wars with other people's kids. And that's one of the things that's making us much less safe, is because we don't have enough Americans truly invested in the process of defeating our enemies. Therefore, I do think without a draft we do need to ask people to recognize we are at war.”[9]
- On September 19, 2015, Huckabee opposed the nomination of Eric Fanning, an openly gay man, to the office of the secretary of the Army. Huckabee said in a statement, “It’s clear President Obama is more interested in appeasing America’s homosexuals than honoring America’s heroes. Veterans’ suicide is out-of-control and military readiness is dangerously low, yet Obama is so obsessed with pandering to liberal interest groups he’s nominated an openly gay civilian to run the Army. Homosexuality is not a job qualification. The U.S. military is designed to keep Americans safe and complete combat missions, not conduct social experiments.”[10]
- According to his 2016 campaign website, Huckabee's "first act as President will be to end the national disgrace of failing to properly care for veterans who sacrificed so greatly for our country." Huckabee's action items to improve services for veterans include increasing accountability for the Department of Veterans Affairs, fixing the "disability claim crisis," providing better employment opportunities for veterans and fighting "for mental health awareness, treatment, and suicide prevention."[11]
- In a 2008 essay in Foreign Affairs, Huckabee advocated for an increase in defense spending from 3.9 percent to 6 percent.[12]
National security
- During the sixth Republican presidential primary debate, on January 14, 2016, Mike Huckabee talked about whether the United States should be in Afghanistan: “Only if there is a concerted effort to destroy the advance of radical Islamists who are against us. As far as what are we going to make it look like. Frankly, I don't know what we can make it look like. You can't create for other people a desire for freedom and democracy. And frankly, that is not the role of the United States. The role of the United States military is not to build schools, it is not to build bridges, it is not to go around and pass out food packets. It is to kill and destroy our enemy and make America safe and that is the purpose we should be there if we're going to be there.”[13]
- At the fifth GOP primary debate on December 15, 2015, Huckabee discussed his support for monitoring mosques: “No, it does not violate their First Amendment rights to have someone go and listen to the sermons. You can go to any church in America, it's a public place, you can listen, and -- you know, if you go to my church, you'll probably get a real blessing. Heck, it'll be a wonderful experience. You go to some people's church, you may go to sleep, I don't know what happens in every church, but, the point is that these are public places, and folks are invited to come. So, if it's a public place, and people are invited to come, how does it violate anybody's First Amendment rights that somebody shows up because they might want to just listen in and see is there something that is a little nefarious? And, if there is, then you take the second step of getting a search warrant, you do whatever you have to do. That's all protected under the constitution. So, Huge, I hear people act like there's something that is terrible about going and sitting in and listening to the sermons of a mosque. If Islam is as wonderful, and peaceful as its adherents say, shouldn't they be begging us to all come in and listen to these peaceful sermons? Shouldn't they be begging us all to come, and listen, and bring the FBI so we'd all want to convert to Islam?”[14]
- Huckabee's press team released a statement on his website on May 7, 2015, applauding a federal court ruling that the National Security Agency (NSA) was violating the law by collecting telephone metadata without warrants. The statement read, "This is good news that a court agrees with what so many Americas already knew, that this program has gone too far. There's no doubt that Intelligence gathering is vital to the security of all Americans but there should be a balance between that protection and our privacy. However, Obama’s warrantless, NSA spying program is more than just illegal, it’s an unconstitutional, criminal assault on our freedoms as Americans. As President, I will repeal this program and protect the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans."[15]
- In a March 2015 interview on "CBS"s Face the Nation, Huckabee said the United States should have armed the Kurds to properly fight ISIS. He added, "[W]herever there's an ISIS target, that we bomb the daylights out of it. We make it unpopular, we make it very, very tenuous for anybody to want to join ISIS, because we need to let them know, they are basically sign on to a death sentence if they want to join this hideous, savage, uncivilized group of people." When asked if he believed there should be American troops on the ground, Huckabee responded, "We don't leave anything off the table. But if they're going to be boots, they have to be more than just U.S. boots. There's got to be some boots that from come from the Saudis, the Jordanians and others."[16]
- In September 2014, during his commentary on his FOX News show, Huckabee stated that terror groups like ISIS need to be eradicated, not contained.[17]
- In January 2008, Huckabee stated his support of President George W.Bush’s decision to engage in the troop surge in Iraq.[18]
- In a 2008 essay published in Foreign Affairs, Huckabee wrote, "A more successful U.S. foreign policy needs to better explain Islamic jihadism to the American people. Given how Americans have thrived on diversity -- religious, ethnic, racial -- it takes an enormous leap of imagination to understand what Islamic terrorists are about, that they really do want to kill every last one of us and destroy civilization as we know it."[12]
- In an October 2007 Republican debate, Huckabee stated that if he were president, he would take military action against Iran if they began building their nuclear capacity. He said he would do so even if Congress did not give him authorization, stating, "You do what's best for the American people, and you suffer the consequences. But what you don't do is -- what you never do is let the American people one day get hit with a nuclear device because you had politics going on in Washington instead of the protection of the American people first."[19]
- In a 2005 interview with The New York Times, Huckabee criticized the Bush administration's use of the National Guard to address troop shortages in Iraq, and said, "The demands of homeland security are...being dumped on the states."[20]
International relations
- Mike Huckabee reiterated his opposition to a two-state solution during his speech before the Republican Jewish Coalition on December 3, 2015. “There cannot be two states trying to own the same piece of real estate. … The United States needs to finally make a definitive statement ... [that] we know who our peace partner in the Middle East is, and it is Israel,” he said.[21]
- In a radio interview on December 3, 2015, Huckabee questioned Turkey’s allegiances in the fight against the Islamic State, saying he trusted them less than Russia. “I don’t trust Putin. I don’t trust Russia, but if Russia is willing to help us kill some of these savages, then I’m more than willing to at least recognize that on this issue maybe not on much else…they are with us not against us. I trust Turkey probably less than I trust Russia,” he said.[22]
- At the fourth Republican primary debate, Huckabee raised concerns about the U.S. taking in Syrian refugees without a vetting process. He said "Are we going to open the doors so that the ISIS people will come on in, and we'll give them a place to say, and a good sandwich, and medical benefits? My gosh, we have $19 trillion dollars in debt, we can't even afford to take care of Americans. So if we're going to do something for the Syrians let's find out who they really are, and the ones that are really in danger, let's help build an encampment for them, but closer to where they live, rather than bringing them here when they don't know the language, the culture -- and, frankly, if we've got as many homeless people as we have, I'm not sure this makes any sense."[23]
- In a radio interview on October 14, 2015, Huckabee said the U.S. should help Saudi Arabia and Jordan build a “processing center” for Syrian refugees instead of accepting them into the country. The U.S. is “tired of being the one country that’s expected to do all the dirty work and to take all the problems,” Huckabee said.[24]
- On September 24, 2015, Huckabee warned against accepting refugees to the U.S. without “vetting” them first. He said in a radio interview, “If we don’t have a vetting process and understand this is not just letting, you know, some hungry children in. This is letting a bunch of military-age-able males that we have no idea who they are, why they’re coming, and how ridiculous it would be to just say, 'Open the floodgates.' I mean we could be inviting some of the most violent and vicious people on Earth to come right in here and live among our families, and I think it’s insane."[25]
- Huckabee questioned the intentions of Syrian refugees seeking asylum in the United States in September 2015. “Are they really escaping tyranny, are they escaping poverty, or are they really just coming because we’ve got cable TV? I don’t meant to be trite. I’m just saying: We don’t know,” said Huckabee.[26]
- On August 27, 2015, Huckabee released an op-ed on Breitbart encouraging a stronger tone with China and outlining his plans for casting aside establishment thinking. He emphasized standing "unapologetically for Chinese democracy" and pushing "back against Chinese cheating."[27]
- Huckabee rejected the words “occupied” and “West Bank” during a visit to the territory on August 19, 2015. Instead, according to The New York Times, Huckabee suggested “the entire occupied West Bank was part of Israel, leaving no room for a Palestinian state there.”[28]
- Following the hack of four million government workers' personal information in June 2015, Huckabee said the United States should respond in kind to the alleged source of the hack, China. Huckabee explained, "The response and retaliation to this behavior is simple — America should hack the Chinese government. We should hack the cellphones of some prominent Communist party leaders, hack the bank accounts of intelligence officials, publicly humiliate Chinese families for political corruption, or wipe-out a few critical Chinese computer systems."[29]
- In May 2015, Huckabee rejected the viability of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Huckabee explained, "The two state solution, if we mean two governments holding the same piece of real estate, is irrational and unworkable. And I think it’s time for us to quit playing this pretentious game that there’s gonna be a two-state solution where both sides share the same country and real estate and streets, ‘cause they’re not. One of the sides, the Palestinians, continue to say that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. You can’t forge an alliance with that." Huckabee added that if a two-state solution were to be implemented, "the Palestinians' state needs to be outside the boundaries of the nation of Israel."[30]
- On his 2016 campaign website, Huckabee declared his support for Israel, writing, "In a world of uncertainty, evil, and moral insanity, Israel is a shining light of moral clarity. The enemies of Israel are the enemies of America."[31]
- The New Yorker reported that Huckabee said in 2008, "I have to be careful saying this, because people get really upset—there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian. That’s been a political tool to try to force land away from Israel."[32]
- In February 2015, Huckabee appeared on CNN where he state the United States couldn't provide sufficient military aid to the Ukraine "to make it a fair fight" with Russia because the country was already severely outmanned. Huckabee added, "[W]e are in the situation as American people where our country has been weakened by sequestration, by multiple deployments, less than 1 percent of our people serving the military. So, Putin knows that we can flex whatever muscle we have, but it's a weakened threat that we now operate with." When pressed to provide a solution to the conflict, Huckabee said there was "no clear military solution" but we should "put as much economic pressure on the Russians as possible" and "try to flood with information to the Russian people."[33]
- In June 2014, Huckabee was critical of President Barack Obama, calling him "quite naïve" about foreign policy.[34]
- In 2009, Huckabee said the United Nations was "the international equivalent of ACORN" and should be defunded.[35]
- In his 2008 book, Do the Right Thing, Huckabee argued that sanctions and legal action should be brought against China for "refus[ing] to play by the rules of fair trade."[36]
Epidemic control
- In October 2014, Mike Huckabee criticized the Obama administration for not restricting flights and quarantining travelers from West Africa during the Ebola outbreak. Huckabee said on his television program on FOX, "We're told that the government has to go overboard with TSA, the IRS and the NSA for our own protection. And then, tell the CDC to go easy on folks fleeing Liberia and lying about whether they've been exposed to Ebola? You know what, I'm feeling a little sick myself but it's not Ebola; I'm just sick of a government I'm paying for telling me not to worry and just trust them. I wish I could, but if they repeatedly lie to me, I just don't believe them anymore."[37]
ISIS and terrorism
- At the fifth GOP primary debate on December 15, 2015, Mike Huckabee, spoke about defeating ISIS ideologically: “The way we defeat them ideologically is that we remind people that what their intent is is to kill us, and that it is our intent to use every means possible to get to them before they get to us. We are pretending that this is a war that is not that significant. We have a president who called it the JV team, said we had contained it. Nine hours after he said we contained it, there was a massacre in Paris. We've got to make it so untenable for somebody to join ISIS. Rather than making it so that teenagers from around the world want to go and be to be a part of this, we need to go after it with significant ground troops, air campaign. The president boasted we had 9,000 flown sorties, air missions over 18 months. What he failed to tell the American people, we were flying 3,000 air missions per day during Desert Storm. And the rules of engagement have got to be loosened, because we have to make sure that we are not just going over and setting off some fireworks. We have to kill some terrorists and kill every one of them we can to make it very clear that to take action or threaten action against the United States, and you've just signed your death warrant. We're coming to get you. And you won't be coming to our shores. You're going to be going to your funeral. That's what we need to do to begin to defeat it ideologically.”[38]
- Huckabee said on November 14, 2015, that the Paris terrorist attacks were the result of poor border security throughout Europe. "When you don’t have borders and the EU has prided itself on saying 'We don’t have borders, we’re politically correct'….last night you see what happens when you don’t have control of your borders," he said. He added that protecting the U.S. from such terrorism begins "with closing our own borders to people who are connected to any country where there's a strong presence of ISIS or Al Qaeda."[39]
Syrian refugees
- In an op-ed for TIME on November 18, 2015, Huckabee argued that no visas should be granted to foreigners from areas with an “ISIS presence.” He wrote, “Europe’s experiment with open borders collided with radical Islamic terrorism on Friday [November 13, 2015], producing the most bloodshed in Paris since WWII. One of the terrorists responsible for the attacks in France is believed to be a Syrian refugee and others are believed to have trained there. Paris should be a wake-up call for the Washington establishment and many in the GOP who support open borders and out-of-control amnesty.” He added, “Regardless of what this White House says, we are not at war with militant Methodists, extremist Episcopalians, or radicalized Roman Catholics. We are at war with Islamic jihadists. And it’s time we identify our enemy by name and start waging a winning war.”[40]
Recent news
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See also
Footnotes
- ↑ USA Today, "Huckabee ends GOP presidential bid," February 1, 2016
- ↑ Washington Post, "Full transcript: Undercard GOP debate," September 16, 2015
- ↑ The Jerusalem Post, "Time for regime change in Iran," August 20, 2015
- ↑ CNN, "Huckabee: 'Thank God for Chuck Schumer'," August 8, 2015
- ↑ Breitbart, "Huckabee: Obama marching Israelies to 'door of oven'," July 25, 2015
- ↑ The Huffington Post, "Mike Huckabee Just Made The Worst Disney Movie Ever, Blowing Up Beloved 'Lion King' Characters," July 21, 2015
- ↑ CNN, "Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee joins Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room," July 21, 2015
- ↑ MikeHuckabee.com, "The Iran Deal," accessed April 10, 2015
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Transcript: CNN undercard GOP debate," December 15, 2015
- ↑ Breitbart, "Mike Huckabee on Obama: 'More interested' to appear homosexuals than military heroes," September 19, 2015
- ↑ Mike Huckabee 2016, "Veterans," accessed June 22, 2015
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Foreign Affairs, "America's Priorities in the War on Terror," January 2008
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Transcript: Fox Business undercard Republican debate," January 14, 2016
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Transcript: CNN undercard GOP debate," December 15, 2015
- ↑ Mike Huckabee 2016, "Statement from Gov. Mike Huckabee on Today's Federal Appeals Court Ruling," May 7, 2015
- ↑ CBS News, "Face the Nation Transcripts March 1, 2015: Boehner, Feinstein, Huckabee," March 1, 2015
- ↑ Mike Huckabee, "You can't contain the cancer of radical Islam," September 23, 2014
- ↑ CNN, "Transcript: CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," January 6, 2008
- ↑ The New York Times, "Transcript: The Republican Debate," October 9, 2007
- ↑ The New York Times, "The Skinny on Politics," August 7, 2005
- ↑ The Hill, "Huckabee: No two-state solution in Israel," December 3, 2015
- ↑ Breitbart, "Mike Huckabee: ‘I Trust Turkey Probably less than I Trust Russia," December 3, 2015
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Transcript: Fox Business undercard GOP debate," November 10, 2015
- ↑ Buzzfeed, "Huckabee: U.S. Can’t Take In Syrian Refugees Just Because They Want 'Free Benefits'," October 14, 2015
- ↑ Huffington Post, "Mike Huckabee Claims Refugees May Be 'Vicious People,' But That's Not The Dumbest Thing He Said," September 24, 2015
- ↑ Sun Times National, "Huckabee wonders if Syrian refugees just want cable," September 14, 2015
- ↑ Breitbart, "Huckabee: Our Political Class Failed On China, Time To Get Tough," August 27, 2015
- ↑ The New York Times, "In Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee Calls West Bank Part of Israel," August 19, 2015
- ↑ The Hill, "Huckabee: Hack China back for attack on fed workers' data," June 8, 2015
- ↑ BuzzFeed, "Huckabee: Two-State Solution Is 'Irrational, Unworkable' — Room For Palestinian State Elsewhere," June 1, 2015
- ↑ Mike Huckabee 2016, "Israel – Our Friend & Ally," accessed June 22, 2015
- ↑ The New Yorker, "Prodigal son: Is the wayward Republican Mike Huckabee now his party’s best hope," June 28, 2010
- ↑ CNN, "Transcript: New Day," February 9, 2015
- ↑ Newsmax, "Mike Huckabee: Obama 'Quite Naive' on Foreign Policy," June 26, 2014
- ↑ The Hill, "Huckabee: Send the U.N. to Saudi Arabia," September 28, 2009
- ↑ Huckabee, Mike. (2008). Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America. New York, NY: Sentinel. (page 133).
- ↑ FOX News Insider, "Huckabee: Ebola Scare Reveals Public's Lack of Faith in Gov't," October 5, 2014
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Transcript: CNN undercard GOP debate," December 15, 2015
- ↑ Breitbart, "Mike Huckabee: Build a Coalition to 'Bomb the Absolute Stink' Out of ISIS, Follow With Troops," accessed November 16, 2015
- ↑ TIME, "Mike Huckabee: Ban All Visas for Travelers From Countries With ISIS Presence," November 18, 2015
