Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee warned Thursday that “God bless America” might become another cliche given America’s tolerance for abortion.
“If we are going to invoke his blessing, as we often do – and it doesn’t matter if it’s a Democrat or a Republican running for president — here’s something we always say at the end of our speeches: God bless you and God bless America,” Huckabee said on the opening day of the Iowa State Fair. “Every Democrat says it. Every Republican says it. But folks, I’m not sure how we fully expect invoke God’s blessing on this country if we continue the slaughter of unborn children in their mother’s wombs, 60 million of whom have passed away since 1973.”
Former Arkansas governor and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speaks at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister, returned to the state of his most notable political triumph of 2008, where he won the Iowa caucuses before capturing eight others states in his ultimately unsuccessful quest for the GOP nomination.
Huckabee said defunding Planned Parenthood isn’t enough.
“Let’s start acting like a civilized people rather than barbarians. Let’s stop the slaughter,” Huckabee said. “When I hear people say, ‘We’ll defund Planned Parenthood,’ well that’s terrific, we should do it. But let’s do more than that. Let’s not just end funding for this nightmare, let’s end the nightmare and make it so that when we ask God to bless us, he can look down from heaven and say, I will.”
Though the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision required all 50 states legalize abortion, Huckabee has previously said that if elected, his administration would recognize constitutional rights of unborn babies as a means of ending abortion.
For Iowa, the 11-day state fair in Des Moines is a significant political event leading to the first nominating contest of 2016. Huckabee was the first of 18 candidates who will speak at the “Soapbox” sponsored by the Des Moines Register newspaper.
Huckabee hit several themes at the fair, including national security and the economy. He opened with a joke about how Hillary Clinton won’t show, but will “email her appearance in,” in reference to the Democratic candidate's growing email scandal. (The New York Times reported that Clinton will visit the fair on Saturday, but will not speak.)
Tapping into Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s key issue of immigration, Huckabee said if elected, he will secure the border in one year.
“I’ll secure the border within my first year because we’ve got to do something about letting our country become an open door where we no longer control our border,” Huckabee said.
He explained why it’s not an audacious promise.
“If you think it’s presumptuous on my part to say we can secure the border in a year, I’m going to tell you, it can be done – 73 years ago, we built a road between British Columbia and Alaska, a 1,700-mile road, and we built it in less than a year,” Huckabee said. “That was with the engineering capabilities of 73 years ago, doing the construction in the arctic winters of the north. Of course we can secure the borders, but you have to have a president who says I will do it and who will be a president who will get it done. That’s my commitment to this country.”
Huckabee, who previously campaigned on replacing the income tax with a national sales tax called the “fair tax,” brought up the plan again by referencing the IRS targeting of conservative groups.
“We have to make some major changes, like get the fair tax passed and quit punishing people for their work and once and for all, get rid of the criminal enterprise known as the Internal Revenue Service,” Huckabee said.
