Huckabee on Larry King 12-17-07

Huckabee appeared on Larry with Chuck Norris. It was soon after the Martial artist endorsed him that the ex-Governor took off in the polls:

What about the quarantine business:

KING: Did you get a bad rap on the AIDS thing, when you said that AIDS should be quarantined?

HUCKABEE: Well, and I said I think the word isolated.

And would I say that today?

No, of course not. We know so much more than we did. That was 1992 -- 15 years ago. And I know some would say but we knew it then. But, you know, I talked to medical doctors back then and even who have said this to me now, we said we knew, but we weren't absolutely, positively sure. And the information we were getting was from our government. And, frankly, a lot of people who weren't trusting our government than anymore than are trusting it now.

But would I say that today?

No, I wouldn't, absolutely not, because we do know better now. In fact, I'm committed, as president, to do more to help on both HIV and AIDS funding than we have done in the past, and even include HIV as part of the Medicaid coverage, because it's consistent with the idea it's better to prevent diseases than it is to treat them.

You trashed the President but you want him to campaign for you? Yeah, sure. Bush is poison. That is why the candidates don't mention him much:

KING: You mentioned that you've supported President Bush and endorsed him and ran for him, etc. -- ran with him.

HUCKABEE: Sure.

KING: Would you want him to run with you?

HUCKABEE: Sure. I would be very happy for...

KING: You'd like him to go around the country with you? HUCKABEE: I would be happy for him to. It would bring some gravitas to the campaign. Now, I don't know what...

KING: Even though his popularity rating is low?

HUCKABEE: He's still the president of the United States and I still have great respect for him. I don't have to agree with a person all the time.

Your Evangelical supporters might not like this answer:

KING: Do you think this is a Christian nation?

HUCKABEE: It's really a secular nation that has Christian underpinnings and Judeo-Christian roots. Our laws are based on the Ten Commandments. Our founding fathers clearly had spiritual guidance. They believed this nation was founded on the notion that our rights come from God, that those are inalienable rights -- which means nobody can take them from us. They even define what they are -- life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. They said they were rights that were endowed by our creator. So they had that understanding.

But what they never wanted to do was to dictate how that had to play out.

KING: Right. They didn't put...

HUCKABEE: That was the difference.

KING: They didn't put God in the Constitution.

HUCKABEE: They didn't. It was implicit within the Constitution that they relied back on the Declaration of Independence. But the basic concept of the First Amendment is that you neither prefer one religion over another or prohibit one.

Hypocrite. You did exactly what Hillary is trying to do with Obama--smear:

KING: Now, let's clear up, you said in the article "The New York Times:" "Didn't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

I have no idea what this has to do with being president, but do you want to clear that up?

HUCKABEE: Well, it has nothing to do and I apologize for that remark. The reason it even was in the article was it was in the course of a conversation with a reporter. Frankly, he knew more about the Mormon faith than I did. I think people thought that I was trying to land a punch and I wasn't. It was an honest conversation -- 10 words out of an 8,100-word story. The Associated Press picked it up and highlighted it and it became this national news phenomenon...

KING: Well...

HUCKABEE: And I regret it. And I went to Mitt Romney afterward, when we were in the debate in Des Moines, and I said, "Mitt, I want to tell you, I apologize. I understand that hurt you and made you feel that I was saying something about your religion. I'm not. I don't particularly care for people attacking my Baptist faith. I'm not attacking yours. And I was simply asking a question. And I apologize. And I would not hurt or offend somebody else's faith."

What dirt is that? The only dirt being spread in the Republican campaign came from you:

HUCKABEE: You know, there's a lot of political dumpster diving that goes on in the campaign. There are people from campaigns going back to my hometown of Hope. They're all over Little Rock. They're looking for any dirt they can find. And usually they'll find it.

I always say this -- check the source. When the source is somebody that I fired from their job, when the source is someone who didn't get reappointed, you have to wonder, do they have an ax to grind more than they have a country to save?

KING: Chuck Norris, fair or unfair?

NORRIS: It's very unfair. You know, the whole thing is, three months ago, Mike lit a spark that turned into raging fire. The press calls it a surge and the radio calls it the Huckaboom. I call it Mike getting his message out to the people in America, who are liking what they're hearing from Mike.

And I told Mike, I said Mike, be -- get ready, because the dirt's going to start flying.

HUCKABEE: Yes.

NORRIS: And I said because any time you get up there and you become a threat to Romney or Giuliani, the dirt is going to fly from every direction. I've been -- you know, in the entertainment field, I've done that. That's why I would never run for politics, Larry...

(LAUGHTER)

NORRIS: ...because I'd be choking every opponent unconscious.

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