GOP presidential candidate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee went after the conservative organization Club for Growth, saying the organization is not credible as it has criticized conservative records while supporting Democrat Alan Grayson.
Grayson made national headlines in 2013 when his wife accused him of domestic abuse, and he is currently going through a public divorce.
“I mean if you really want to get the most inaccurate depiction of my record, go to the people who hate my guts, that would be the Club for Growth,” Huckabee said to a reporter at a press conference during the California GOP Convention in Anaheim, California on Friday.
“So, you didn’t raise taxes as Governor?” the reported questioned.
Huckabee answered:
Ninety-four times we cut taxes. We rebuilt our roads. We did many things like cutting the marriage penalty, reducing capital gains taxes. I want you to understand I did that in the headwinds of the most Democratic legislature in America. More Democratic than even California, more democratic than Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Oregon, New York, New Jersey. I think it was a pretty significant record on reducing the burden of taxes for working people. What I embrace at the federal level is the FairTax, which is a tax on consumption as opposed to a tax on productivity, and it would really empower poor people – really give poor people at the bottom a chance to rise up on the economic scale. And I think would bring an unprecedented growth in our economy.
“That doesn’t answer the question, did you raise taxes as Governor and have you changed your policy since then,” the reporter charged again.
Huckabee again responded:
My policies have never changed. I balanced a budget; you do what you have to do to balance a budget. I did that for ten and a half years. I came in with a deficit of about 400 million dollars, I left with a surplus of almost a billion dollars. I never did what the federal government has done, that’s double the debt and make it so there’s never been a balanced budget since probably since the early 90s.
Breitbart News followed up with Huckabee on his reference of the Club for Growth and asked what his thoughts were on the organization going back and forth with frontrunner Donald Trump and being critical of other conservative presidential candidates using its political arm.
“I think they’ve always focused on their political arm. They’re also supporting Alan Grayson in Florida, one of the most liberal Democrats in the country because they don’t like apparently the Republican. How do you rationalize that?” Huckabee added, “Anybody who’s ever looked at Alan Grayson’s record, listened to his rhetoric – and they’re giving the guy money?”
“I don’t think they have any credibility. So I’ll let them do their thing, I’ll do mine,” Huckabee concluded. “But they’ve attacked so many good conservative people who have actually governed and that’s unfortunate.”
Breitbart News reached out to the Club for Growth about its support of Alan Grayson, which Huckabee criticized.
“The Club for Growth PAC has endorsed Congressman Ron DeSantis in the Florida Senate race,” Club for Growth spokesman Doug Sachtleben clarified to Breitbart News.
Sachtleben added:
The Club for Growth does not support Alan Grayson. If you’re referring to the issue ad the Club ran in May, that was clearly and strictly about his opposition to the Export-import Bank, and was part of a larger issue advocacy campaign the Club did in leading the fight to oppose reauthorization of Ex-Im, with its corruption and corporate welfare.
The Tampa Bay Times earlier reported about the Club for Growth’s ad praising Grayson’s position on the Ex-Im Bank, but also noted the ad failed to mention the Club’s endorsement of Ron DeSantis.
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