During an appearance on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News show on Friday, former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) made a very interesting comment for a potential Republican presidential candidate: He defended the Obama administration on something, specifically against right-wing attacks that the India trip is too costly.
As we’ve reported, many on the right have complained that Obama is spending more money — $200 million per day — than the nation spends daily on the war in Afghanista. “No basis in reality” was the way Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest described that claim in an email to TPM.
“Presidents always get in trouble when they take a trip. It doesn’t matter whether they’re Democrats or Republicans. The Republicans whine when the Democrats go, and the Democrats whine when the Republicans go,” said Huckabee.
“It’s an expensive trip. But the reality is, it costs a lot of money to take a president and all the necessary security, especially in a country like India, where there have been a lot of terrorist bombings and things have to be carefully managed.”
He did offer this caution about why the criticisms of Obama might have traction: “But I think there’s the timing — the fact that right now, in a very bad economy, with about 15 million Americans who don’t have a job, would like to have one, it’s just one of those things that symbolically it’s very difficult for the White House to say, ‘Sure, we needed to take 3,000 people to India right now.’ So it’s one of those questions. He needs to come back with some really, really wonderful things to report to be able to say it was a necessary trip.”
Van Susteren raised the point that canceling the long-planned trip would itself have resulted in a lot of expenses that were already committed and spent being thrown away. Huckabee then gave yet another reason that the show must go on.
“Well, and another problem he would have, it would be very insulting to the people of India,” said Huckabee. “They’ve been a good friend of the United States, not only in terms of diplomatic friendship, but they’ve also been a good trade partner. And for him to abruptly cancel the trip would have been a snub of epic proportions and would have had long-lasting implications and created damage that, frankly, we don’t need right now in the international community. We need all the friends we can get, and India is one of them we need to keep.”
