Donald Trump has selected Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007 and a right-wing evangelical preacher with a messianic view about Israel, as U.S. ambassador to Israel.
Huckabee has voiced strong support for Israel’s war on Gaza even though it has engaged in egregious war crimes, and acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Newsweek reported that Huckabee’s appointment led to rejoicing among Israel’s right-wing settlers and advocates of Israel’s territorial claims in the occupied West Bank, which Huckabee supports.
In line with his evangelical Christian outlook, Huckabee believes that God granted historic Palestine to Israel, putting him on the same wavelength as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom he is close with.
For years, Huckabee led paid tour group visits to Israel, which were advertised in conservative news outlets.
When he was Governor of Arkansas in the early 2000s, he supported the Iraq War on similarly messianic grounds, saying that democracy takes a long time to develop among a people long oppressed by a dictator.
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Huckabee said that Palestinian identity was “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”
During Huckabee’s 2015 run for president, Huckabee suggested that if a Palestinian state were to be created, it should be in neighboring countries like Egypt, Syria or Jordan, rather than within Israel’s borders.
Huckabee reiterated that point during a 2015 interview on Israeli TV, in which he argued that a two-state solution was “irrational and unworkable” and said “there’s plenty of land” outside of Israel in the “rest of the world” for a Palestinian state.
In 2017, Huckabee said that he thought Israel had title deeds to Judea and Samaria, biblical terms for the West Bank that are used by far-right wing proponents of a Greater Israel like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the man currently in charge of Israeli settlements who congratulated Huckabee for his selection on X.
Ruth Jackson Lawrence is a writer and business owner from Texarkana, Arkansas, who has intimate familiarity with Mike Huckabee and his family. Below is an article that she wrote about him—Editor.
Condoning Abuse in God’s Name—The Story of Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee enjoys a pristine public image in the state of Arkansas, where he was once voted by Time magazine as one of the top five governors in the U.S.
Huckabee makes a point of celebrating his Christian beliefs and upholding Christian morality as part of his public appeal. However, in reality he upholds a narrow-minded world view that allows him to support highly dubious domestic and foreign policies—as in the case of his support for the Iraq War and, now, Israeli genocide.
In 2007, Huckabee was named by Judicial Watch, a conservative political watchdog group, as the sixth most corrupt politician in the U.S. Judicial Watch’s report quoted from the Associated Press, which stated: “[Huckabee’s] career has…been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.”
Judicial Watch asked: “And what was Governor Huckabee’s response to these ethics allegations? Rather than cooperating with investigators, Huckabee sued the state ethics commission twice and attempted to shut the ethics process down.”
Huckabee’s questionable ethics—evident today in his support for Israeli genocide—were apparent in the Josh Duggar scandal and in his ties to a misogynistic Christian cult whose leader has been accused of serial sexual offenses.
Josh Duggar was a reality TV star, part of the hit TLC show 19 Kids & Counting about Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar’s huge family based in Tontitown, Arkansas.
Duggar was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison in 2022 on child pornography charges. When he was an adolescent, he molested multiple underage girls, including four of his siblings. Both Jim Bob and Josh were active in Arkansas Republican politics and, in 2008, Josh worked on Mike Huckabee’s presidential primary campaign.
On May 22, 2015, the day after In Touch Weekly released police reports from 2006 regarding sexual allegations against Josh Duggar as a minor, Huckabee made a Facebook post supporting the entire Duggar family (not excluding Josh), minimizing Josh’s sexual abuse, and objectifying and speaking for the victims.
“Janet and I want to affirm our support for the Duggar family. Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, “inexcusable,” but that doesn’t mean “unforgivable.” He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things. The reason that the law protects disclosure of many actions on the part of a minor is that the society has traditionally understood something that today’s blood-thirsty media does not understand that being a minor means that one’s judgment is not mature. No one needs to defend Josh’s actions as a teenager, but the fact that he confessed his sins to those he harmed, sought help, and has gone forward to live a responsible and circumspect life as an adult is testament to his family’s authenticity and humility. Those who have enjoyed revealing this long ago sins [sic] in order to discredit the Duggar family have actually revealed their own insensitive bloodthirst, for there was no consideration of the fact that the victims wanted this to be left in the past and ultimately a judge had the information on file destroyed-not to protect Josh, but the innocent victims. Janet and I love Jim Bob and Michelle and their entire family. They are no more perfect a family than any family, but their Christian witness is not marred in our eyes because following Christ is not a declaration of our perfection, but of HIS perfection. It is precisely because we are all sinners that we need His grace and His forgiveness. We have been blessed to receive God’s love and we would do no less than to extend our love and support for our friends. In fact, it is such times as this, when real friends show up and stand up. Today, Janet and I want to show up and stand up for our friends. Let others run from them. We will run to them with our support.”
One line is particularly haunting. Huckabee stated that “the fact that he [Josh] confessed his sins to those he harmed, sought help, and has gone forward to live a responsible and circumspect life as an adult is testament to his family’s authenticity and humility.”
Huckabee’s only concern for the victims was an avenue for Josh to confess and receive a forced forgiveness so that he could “live a responsible and circumspect life.”
Huckabee had the perfect opportunity to center the needs of victims, but he chose only to use them for Josh to receive vindication and to shame the media for violating the victim’s wishes for privacy. Instead, Huckabee chose to use the victims yet again, this time as a tool to shame those demanding the truth from the Duggar family, who chose to live their life and faith on a public platform. Huckabee clearly misconstrued forgiveness for a lack of accountability.
It is worth noting that two of Josh’s sisters and victims have publicly spoken out as adults saying that they felt pressured to forgive Josh.
Huckabee’s words regarding a responsible and circumspect life did not age well in light of the events of the following years. Not only did Josh get discovered in 2019 as the owner of multiple Ashley Madison accounts, even cheating on his wife Anna while she was pregnant with his child, he was accused of sexual assault by one of his Ashley Madison clients. Then, in 2021, Josh Duggar was busted by federal agents for downloading extreme versions of child pornography onto his work computer, for which he is now in prison.
Perhaps this slippery slope of sexual perversion could have been avoided if Josh had had appropriate and timely intervention. Instead of Josh receiving the proper treatment he needed when he molested his sisters and another victim as a teenager, his family chose to usurp the law for their faith, which proved grossly deficient.
Josh was sent to do construction work under the direction of Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) leader Bill Gothard, who has also been accused of sexual misconduct with young girls. Perhaps Josh could have lived that responsible and circumspect life Huckabee was so certain of if his family’s top priority had been their children’s well-being and safety, not saving face and getting on TV.
The Cult Behind the Façade
The religious background of both the Duggars and Huckabees is rooted in the Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a cult that gained popularity at the end of the 20th century, and still lingers today, although with less zest.
Huckabee stated in a letter of support for the IBLP, “As a person who has actually been through the Basic Seminar, I am confident that these are some of the best programs available for instilling character into the lives of people.” Huckabee’s book, Character Makes a Difference, is for sale on the IBLP website.
Huckabee has publicly supported IBLP leader Bill Gothard’s programs, including endorsing Gothard’s “Character Cities” program, which aims to integrate his principles into public governance, albeit without overt religious references. This endorsement aligns Huckabee with dominionist ideas, as it reflects an attempt to merge religious principles with governmental functions (Good Faith Media) (Political Research Associates).
The IBLP parades as an upstanding Christian organization, but it singularly focuses on authoritarianism and blind submission to “God-given” authority, which includes church leaders over members, government over civilians, and most notably, men over women and children.
Its home-school curriculum goes so far as to shift blame for rape to women, stating explicitly that a female is equally at fault if she does not cry out, and extensively shames women for any appearance-related choice that could potentially tempt a man. The curriculum does not give equal admonition to males on how to manage temptations or manage the responsibilities of being in authority.
In the 2023 Amazon Prime docuseries, Shiny Happy People, multiple former members of IBLP institutions and families practicing their home-school curriculum spoke out about the abusive culture beneath IBLP’s wholesome surface. Multiple former child members of the cult recounted how their home-school curriculum consisted of 54 wisdom booklets based on Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount rather than math and science.
These booklets drilled blind submission to authority and imparted guilt to women for having any sexuality that could potentially tempt a man. Survivors recounted multiple instances of sexual assault by boys and men occupying their “God-given authority” roles. Women were discouraged from higher education and any means of self-sufficiency. Divorce was considered an absolute evil, leaving many women in abusive homes, prisoners to their husband’s authority.
Gothard himself has been exposed as a sexual predator, having been accused of sexually harassing more than 30 women.
Huckabee is quoted on the IBLP website calling the Basic Seminar “some of the best programs available for instilling character into the lives of people.” Huckabee’s worldview generally aligns with that of Gothard with his in his support for incorporating religious principles into governance.
Huckabee has deep ties to the Joshua Generation, a movement of faith-driven leadership that encourages bold, grassroots action, particularly on the part of America’s conservative youth.
Huckabee has come under scrutiny for views that can be considered theocratic, even though he denies that extreme position. But, can “Crawfish Mike” as he is nicknamed be trusted?
His opinions and proposed policies focus on a “God-centered” nation and the belief that laws come from God, not the congressmen who write them or the citizens who vote on them, which is theocracy, not democracy. Huckabee stops short of calling for an openly theocratic government, but he is pushing the framework of American democracy beyond its designed limits with the influence of narrow Christian values that exclude other faiths, races and cultures in determining laws.
Not only did Mike Huckabee directly state that an abusive cult leader’s programs were “some of the best programs available for instilling character…”; he has gone through these programs himself and profits from the cult’s following. Mike Huckabee is not just associated with a cult leader; he is one.
The Huckabee Family
One need not look further than Huckabee’s own sons to see that his staunchly narrow moral philosophy does not work in the real world. The youngest has been in the spotlight for torturing and brutally killing a dog and attempting to board a plane with a loaded gun, while the first-born is a film producer with limited success, some of which is questionably softcore porn.
The younger Huckabee son, David, came under fire in 2007 for his involvement in hanging a stray dog with mange while working at a Boy Scout camp in Arkansas in the 1990s. Then-governor of the state, Mike Huckabee asked the director of the Arkansas State Police, John Bailey, to write a letter denying the prosecution’s request to investigate David Huckabee on animal cruelty charges.
Seven months after Bailey refused to write the letter, Huckabee terminated him. Huckabee stated that he had lost confidence in Bailey to do his job, but he specifically cited not helping in the incident with his son in the conversation. Former FBI Chief in Little Rock I.C. Smith has stated that Huckabee was “without question…making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son.”
In typical Huckabee fashion, he later publicly minimized his son’s actions. He told the media that what his son did was actually humane since the dog was suffering from mange, but taking the dog to a vet for proper treatment is more humane than hanging him in the woods. Huckabee’s son was fired from his position at the Arkansas Boy Scout camp, but Huckabee halted any form of official investigation to test his son’s proclaimed innocence.
That same year, David Huckabee made headlines after he was arrested for trying to board a plane in Little Rock with a loaded .40-caliber Glock pistol. In addition to the eight live rounds in the pistol itself, Huckabee had a nine-round clip in the bag. The young Huckabee claimed to have forgotten the weapon was in his carry-on bag, but forgetting about possession of a loaded pistol is not a sign of responsible gun ownership.
David’s concealed carry license was revoked as a result of the incident, and it also cost him $855 in court fees, a one-year suspended jail sentence, one-year of probation, and a misdemeanor charge for possessing a weapon in a prohibited place.
The eldest Huckabee child, John Mark Huckabee, made news in 2015 when a YouTube clip surfaced of his now-abandoned film, Charlie Muse. Huckabee wrote, produced, and starred in the failed film venture. He played a sleazy, chain-smoking Hollywood agent who tells an aspiring actress, “You got to have a thick skin and a willingness to do whatever it takes to succeed. Do you not think there’s an A-list actor out there that’s never had to show some tit or suck a little dick to get a part? You know what I mean, sweet cheeks?”
Huckabee also stars in the low budget 2018 film, Christmas: A Revenge Tale, as a crime boss who murders an editor for not doing free work. Neither film seems to be in keeping with the narrow moral beliefs that the Huckabee family claims to uphold.
A Christian Zealot
What does Mike Huckabee have, aside from his words that spew hatred and intolerance for anyone who does not believe the same narrow views as himself while proclaiming “God’s love”? Gays, transgender, and non-Christians are all anti-American in his eyes and destroying the country. Therefore, he wants to destroy them in return, a perfect display of “God’s love.”
His inner circle consists of cult leaders, pedophiles, and convicted sex offenders. His sons torture puppies and produce morally questionable films that border on soft-core porn. His daughter continually pushes legislation that bullies those who do not hold her strict religious views. What evidence does Mike Huckabee have to show for a life well lived, other than empty words and the façade of “Christian”?
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About the Author
Ruth Jackson Lawrence is a Tulsa-based journalist and health advocate with a Master of Science in Healthcare Administration and National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach credentials.
A survivor of abuse, a black market adoption, and PTSD, she leverages her lived experiences to expose systemic failures and corruption, focusing on the intersections of politics, social justice, and public welfare.
With a bold, unflinching style, she crafts compelling narratives that give a voice to the marginalized.
Ruth can be reached at ruththewriter.79@gmail.com.
