The Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Sunday attempted to answer criticism of his bona fides as a conservative, saying his support for social security and Medicare did not make him like a Democrat, but more “like an American”.
He also defended himself against criticism over his appearance in an infomercial for a diabetes cure of dubious scientific value.
On Tuesday Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas who came second in the Republican primaries in 2008, declared his second candidacy for the White House. Prominent in evangelical circles – Mother Jones magazine this week unearthed a 1979 recording of him preaching against the Monty Python movie Life of Brian – he is notably outspoken on issues such as same-sex marriage and gave up a job as a Fox News host to run.
Based on some of his economic and social policies and his record in state government, however, he has faced strong criticism from, among others, the Club for Growth, a powerful group on the right, for being a “big government conservative”.
Asked by CBS host Bob Schieffer if the part of his 2016 announcement speech about “saving social security” had made him sound “more like a Democrat than a Republican”, and how he thought that would play in the Republican primaries, Huckabee said: “Well, I think I sounded more like an American.
“An American who understands that people have been paying in, in my case since I was 14 years old, when I got my first job, people pay into a system for 50 years, and when I hear people say that [such people are] on welfare when they get a social security check or a Medicare benefit I’m thinking, ‘Wait a minute.’”
Huckabee said he understood that social security and Medicare had “some real fiscal problems” that needed to be addressed, but added of attempts to cut or even abolish such programmes, as advocated by some in the Republican ranks: “Why would we punish the recipients who played by the rules they were forced to play by?”
He added: “Social security and Medicare are not voluntary programmes. So my point is that you don’t go out there and tell people: ‘We’re going to change the rules because we screwed up the system and we didn’t act as good stewards of your money like we said we were going to do.’”
Asked if he supported reforms to such programmes, Huckabee said he did not believe the only way to make such reforms “was to hurt somebody”.
The former governor was also called upon by Schieffer to answer criticisms over his recent paid promotion of a diabetes cure that Schieffer said was “not supported by the medical community”.
“There’s going to be a lot of criticism thrown my way,” Huckabee said. “The particular plan you’re talking about is about healthy eating, watching the kind of foods one takes in.
“I don’t have to defend everything I’ve ever done. I’m not doing those infomercials now, obviously, as a candidate for president. But if that’s the worst thing someone can say to me, that I advocated for people who have diabetes to do something to reverse it and stop the incredible pain of that, then I’m going to be a heck of a good president.”
Schieffer – who also has diabetes – said Huckabee had also been selling pills.
Huckabee said: “No, no, that’s a misnomer. One of the elements of the plan was dietary supplements, but it’s not the fundamental thing.”
Huckabee concluded by saying diabetes was “one of the four big things that are costing Americans in the healthcare system, along with cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease.
“If we approach this as I have suggested, which is looking for cures rather than just treatment, we can not only save lives, we start saving serious money. And that’s one of the reforms we need to be talking about nationally.”
