Huckabee, Clinton spar over Holocaust comments
Hillary Clinton and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee traded jabs Monday after the Democratic presidential frontrunner ripped the Republican presidential candidate’s reference to the Holocaust during criticism of the Iranian nuclear deal.
{mosads}Clinton said in Iowa that she was “disappointed” and “really offended personally” by Huckabee’s comment that President Obama was marching Israelis to the “door of the oven.”
“I find this kind of inflammatory rhetoric totally unacceptable,” Clinton said.
“This steps over the line and it should be repudiated by every person of good faith and concern about the necessity to keep our political dialogue on the facts and within suitable boundaries,” the former secretary of State said Monday, according to The New York Times.
Huckabee responded via Twitter:
.@HillaryClinton: You finally come out of hiding to attack me for defending Israel? What’s “unacceptable” is a mushroom cloud over Israel.
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 27, 2015
The 2016 GOP candidate has stood by his remark, from an interview Saturday with Breitbart, despite ridicule by Democrats and President Obama.
“What’s ‘ridiculous and sad’ is that President Obama does not take Iran’s repeated threats seriously,” Huckabee said in a statement on Monday, referring to Obama’s earlier criticism.
Huckabee’s remark, while drawing widespread condemnation from Jewish groups, has pitted him against the two most prominent members of the Democratic Party, among others.
It also comes as candidates running in an extremely crowded Republican presidential field work to stand out amid weeks of attention to businessman Donald Trump, currently atop several polls.
Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses during his last White House bid in 2008, currently ranks seventh in the GOP field of more than a dozen candidates, according to a CNN/ORC poll out Sunday.
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