Mike Huckabee Accidentally Called for Roy Moore to Drop Out of the Alabama Senate Race

Mike Huckabee’s words may come back to haunt him.

The former presidential candidate appeared on Fox News on Tuesday where he discussed the nine allegations of sexual misconduct lodged against the GOP Senate hopeful. Four women came forward in a Nov. 9 Washington Post report, claiming that Moore, then a district attorney in Gadsden, Ala., tried to solicit them for sex when they were teenagers. Five more accusers would follow.

Huckabee reminded the network that Moore has “denied the charges against him vehemently and categorically,” before claiming Democrats were holding him to an unfair double standard.

“They have a lot of questions about Roy Moore, I understand that,” he said during a Sunday segment. “But you know it’s down to the fact that as long as Al Franken is in the Senate, and [John] Conyers is staying in office, why not have Roy Moore?”

But Huckabee’s defense of the embattled politician has hit a major snag: Both of them have dropped out in the days since he made those comments.

Franken announced his resignation in a speech delivered on the floor of the Senate Thursday. “Nothing I have done as a senatornothinghas brought dishonor on this institution,” he told colleagues after eight women came forward to accuse Franken of sexual misconduct.

Radio personality Leeann Tweeden posted a photo of the former SNL cast member groping her during a USO tour in the Middle East back in 2006. She also claims that Franken forcibly kissed her while rehearsing for a sketch they were scheduled to perform. Most recently, Tina Dupuy accused him of assaulting her during a 2009 inauguration party for Barack Obama in an article for The Atlantic.

“He immediately put his hand on my waist, grabbing a handful of flesh,” Dupuy wrote just hours before his resignation speech. “I froze. Then he squeezed. At least twice. Al Franken’s familiarity was inappropriate and unwanted. It was also quick; he knew exactly what he was doing.”

At least 20 Senate Democrats have called on Franken to resign as the allegations piled up, including, California’s Kamala Harris and Missouri’s Claire McCaskill.

Conyers was actually resigning while the segment with Huckabee aired on the morning of Dec. 5. The Michigan Democrat, who has served in Congress for 52 years, told the Washington Post that he was “putting his retirement plans together.” The House’s long-serving member added that his son, John Conyers III, would be running to replace him.

“This, too, shall pass,” Conyers claimed in an interview with a Detroit radio station. “My legacy will continue through my children.”

But Huckabee, never letting cognitive dissonance get in the way of outrage, appears to be unimpressed by the very resignations he called for. On his Twitter account, the one-time Arkansas governor called Franken’s speech “stunning.”“Not because he resigned, but lack of contrition or apology was startling,” he wrote in a 12:04pm tweet.

Additionally, the politician that Huckabee accidentally suggested should step down if Franken and Conyers did, appears to have no plans to do so.

Moore, one of the nation’s most vociferously anti-LGBTQ figures, has repeatedly called the numerous, well-sourced allegations against him “garbage” and “the very definition of fake news.” He was attacking opponent Doug Jones, a Democrat, on Twitter just hours before Franken announced he would be leaving the Senate.

Instead of backing off his campaign in the Dec. 12 runoff elections, Republicans have embraced the Alabama Republican in the final hours of his Senate bid.

After President Donald Trump called Moore to offer the White House’s endorsement on Monday, the Republican National Convention announced that it would be suspending its embargo on funding his campaign. “The RNC is the political arm of the president, and we support the president,” the Republican Party said.

Franken himself noted the “irony” of the situation today.

“I of all people am aware there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape of his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office,” the comedian-turned-politician said. “And a man who repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party.”

The president has yet to comment on the Minnesota Senator’s resignation.

Photography: Getty Images