Rick Santorum was “sickened” by a report that reality TV star Josh Duggar had molested underage girls, including his sisters, while a teenager.
“I was just sickened by it,” the Republican presidential candidate told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
In Touch magazine last week rocked the TV world when it released a long-buried police report alleging that the eldest son of the Duggar family had confessed to “forcibly fondling” several minors, including his female siblings, when he was 15.
{mosads}”I pray for those girls in particular,” Santorum said. “To have gone through that is … just hard to think about.”
The former Pennsylvania senator’s remarks are notably distinct from those made by his fellow 2016 presidential contender, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee wrote a lengthy Facebook post in support of Duggar, saying that, while the now-27-year-old’s actions were “inexcusable,” they were not “unforgivable.” Huckabee further slammed the “blood-thirsty media” for “sensationalizing” the story.
TLC has since pulled all episodes of its hit series “19 Kids and Counting” from the air, with online streaming service Hulu following suit several days later.
Duggar, for his part, apologized in a Facebook post and resigned from his position as executive director of FRC Action, the lobbying arm of the conservative Family Research Council.