Dragging families into a heated campaign is “disgusting,” Mike Huckabee said, calling Saturday for a truce between the two men leading the GOP field.
Huckabee’s appeal for peace Saturday morning on Fox News follows a days-long fight sparked by GOP front-runner Donald Trump’s attack on Ted Cruz’s wife Heidi. Trump retweeted a side-by-side picture of his own wife Melania and an unflattering image of Mrs. Cruz. An attached caption read: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Trump has claim his attack was justified by an ad by a super PAC that is not affiliated with Cruz that included an image of Trump’s wife, a model, that appeared in “GQ Magazine.”
The Texas senator called Trump a “sniveling coward” for going after his wife.
Huckabee said he faced similar attacks as a candidate and during his stint as governor of Arkansas. “The single most disgusting thing that you ever deal with is when your families get unfairly brought into a campaign,” he said.
“They’re not on the ballot,” Huckabee said. “There’s no reason to attack them in whatever way. And whether it’s done by surrogates that candidates can say ‘Oh, I had nothing to do with it,’ or whether it’s some of the candidates themselves, this is simply something that ought to be off limits.”
Huckabee suggested that the billionaire businessman and Texas senator have a phone conversation in an attempt to patch things up.
“You know, Vito Corlioni sitting down with Philip Tattaglia and saying, ‘there’s got to be a truce’ because this goes nowhere that helps anybody and it’s really, really horrible,” Huckabee said, referencing rival crime bosses in the gangster movie “The Godfather.”
Huckabee said he hopes people will start to think “rationally” once they see the alternative to a Republican Party in conflict.
“I don’t think there will be a lot of sincerity if there’s a moment on the stage at the [Republican National Committee convention] in which these two guys hug and, you know, wave hands together,” Huckabee said.
“The worst thing that can happen to America is not a party that is having some internal fighting. The worst thing is to have Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders as the next president of the United States,” Huckabee said. “And that’s when I think people will start thinking rationally.
Huckabee has not endorsed a candidates since he dropped out of the GOP nomination race. But Huckabee has praised Trump, and his daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders joined Trump’s campaign in February as a senior adviser.
