Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is doubling down on comments widely blasted as transphobic, a week after a February speech emerged in which the former Arkansas governor said he wished he had pretended to be transgender in high school so he could shower with girls.
Although Huckabee complained about what he called the liberal media's focus on his comments on Wednesday, by Friday he was singing a different tune -- albeit on a right-wing radio show hosted by anti-LGBT Iowa pundit Steve Deace.
Deace claimed that liberal media misrepresented Huckabee's comments to suggest they were in direct response to Caitlyn Jenner's coming-out, although most media (The Advocate included) noted that Huckabee's comments were made during a February speech. What's more, BuzzFeed News discovered at least two earlier incidents where Huckabee made trans people the punchline of a "joke."
In addition to using Jenner's old name, Deace refers to "this alleged transgender issue," with audible contempt in his voice.
"I take nothing back from that speech," Huckabee told Deace. "I'm kind of glad it's posted because people, if they watch the whole clip, what they're going to see is that I'm giving a commonsense answer to the insanity that's going on out there."
While Huckabee seems to imply that the "insanity" is letting transgender students use the facilities that correspond with their gender, a new study reveals that none of the nation's 17 school districts with trans-inclusive policies -- serving more than 600,000 students -- have reported a single disciplinary issue stemming from letting trans students use the restroom.
Indeed, Huckabee's claim that boys will "pretend" to be transgender to gain access to girl's locker room is the true insanity.
Nevertheless, Huckabee complained to Deace that "everybody wants to be politically correct, everybody wants to be loved by the media and loved by the left and loved by the elitists."
"But, you know, I know I'm not going to be, so let's just get it over with," he concluded. "I'd rather be a common-sense candidate for people who did take their brains to work today."
Listen to the clip below, excerpted by Right Wing Watch.
