Unlike fellow social conservative Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum didn’t exactly leap to Josh Duggar’s defense Thursday.
During an interview on “Good Morning America,” the newly announced Republican presidential candidate expressed disgust with the molestation allegations against Josh Duggar. The Duggar family stars in the reality TV show “19 Kids and Counting,” which is popular among religious conservatives. The family supported Santorum in 2012 and made a video listing 19 reasons to vote for him for president.
“I was sickened by it. I was just sickened by it,” Santorum said of the molestation incident. “I pray for those girls in particular.”
“To have gone through that is … just hard to think about,” he added.
Josh Duggar was being investigated for inappropriately touching minors in 2006. He recently admitted in a statement that he “acted inexcusably,” apologizing to those he hurt.
Fellow 2016 contender Mike Huckabee, who is also a close friend of the Duggar family, had rallied to the Duggars’ defense.
“Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, ‘inexcusable,’ but that doesn’t mean ‘unforgivable,'” Huckabee posted on Facebook, adding. “No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things.”
Although Duggar was never charged with the crime TLC pulled “19 Kids and Counting” from its schedule. The future of the program is uncertain.
