TV preacher Pat Robertson said on his program yesterday that Kentucky clerk Kim Davis “is not exactly that champion we’d all want to stand up for our beliefs.” Ouch.
When Ted Cruz showed up and tried to join Huckabee, Davis, her husband, and her lawyer on the stage, a Huckabee staffer literally, physically blocked the Texas senator from participating.
BuzzFeed noted yesterday that the former Arkansas governor acknowledged that Cruz was “Huckablocked.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee admitted Wednesday that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was blocked at his event from appearing on stage at a rally for Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis when she was released from jail.“Well, this was our event,” the former Arkansas governor told NewsMaxTV’s Steve Malzberg Show. “My team put it together. We’re the ones who recruited the people not only to be on the program, but we’re the ones who coordinated the effort. We’re the ones who secured the permits, the staging. We had no idea Ted Cruz was going to show up until the day before and he didn’t call us, he called several other people on the program and asked about it.”
Huckabee added, “The program, of course, was already settled. And I was happy that [Cruz] was able to come and show his support for her, even if it was at the last minute.”
That last phrase there, “even if it was at the last minute,” really stands out, doesn’t it?
On last night’s show, Rachel was able to move the ball forward a bit more.
We now know, for example, that the man who physically prevented Cruz from getting onto the Kentucky stage is Aaron Chang, the director of advance on the Huckabee campaign, which means he’s in charge of event logistics.
When we asked the Cruz campaign for its reaction, a campaign official told us in response, “I’m not going to comment on that.”
Rachel added, “So, two Republican presidential candidates, grown men who are not in junior high school, are nevertheless competing over who gets to jump on to the cause of a clerk in Kentucky who served time in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. They’re fighting over her physically.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."