Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s speech before the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting took a bizarre turn on Thursday when he blamed big-government’s “Uncle Sugar” for fueling women’s libidos.
Huckabee said Democrats need women to feel dependent on things like affordable contraception in order to keep their votes.
“If the Democrats want women to believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it, let us take this discussion all across America because women are far more than the Democrats have played them to be,” the former Arkansas Governor said.
Huckabee lashed out at Democrats over the provision in the ACA that allows women to get prescription birth control without a copay.
“Women I know are outraged that Democrats think that women are nothing more than helpless and hopeless creatures whose only goal in life is to have the government provide them with birth control medication,” the former Arkansas governor said.
Democrats were quick to respond to Huckabee’s comments. “Mike Huckabee has no idea what he’s talking about. If this is the GOP rebrand a year later then all they’ve gotten is a year older,” DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.
When asked to respond to Huckabee’s remarks at Thursday’s White House daily briefing, Press Secretary Jay Carney admitted that while he hadn’t yet seen the remarks, “whoever said it, it sounds offensive to me, and to women.”
Meredith Clark
Meredith Clark is a freelance writer and editor. She was previously a senior news producer for "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj," a reporter with MSNBC.com, the digital politics and culture editor at Glamour and a senior news and politics editor at Refinery29. She has written for Vulture, Rolling Stone, Self, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast and Bustle.