Democrats piled on and began fundraising off former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s comments at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting that Democrats think women “cannot control their libido” without government’s help.
“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 as news about Huckabee’s comments circulated Thursday afternoon.
Lily Adams, the DNC’s deputy communications director, dispatched an email to supporters encouraging people to “chip in $10 or more to support Democrats who respect women and support their right to make their own health care decisions.”
“At their national meeting, happening right now, high-ranking Republicans are discussing a proposal to ensure that their candidates actively and vocally stand against abortion rights,” she wrote. “(And former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee just took the stage to argue government shouldn’t help women who can’t control their “libidos,” just in case you thought GOP leadership had actually gotten better at talking to and about women).”
And White House press secretary Jay Carney reacted to the comments when asked by a reporter during the White House press briefing by saying, “I haven’t seem that report, but whoever said it, it sounds offensive to me, and to women.”
In an email to The Daily Caller, Huckabee said that Carney was reacting to falsehoods, given some of the misleading reports that were dispatched during his speech.
“Trust you have seen that Dana and others had to admit they got the story 180 degrees wrong and have had to issue corrections,” the former 2008 presidential candidate emailed.
“So Carney was reacting to total falsehoods just like he does when reacting to his boss’s comments about keeping your doctor,” he added.
Huckabee made his comments earlier in the day saying in full, “If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them 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.”
And while Huckabee’s verbiage was unusual, the comments were reported out of context by reporters on Twitter, igniting a firestorm of reaction on Twitter.
As Mediaite points out, CNN reporter Dana Bash and NBC News correspondent Kasie Hunt, both tweeted and then revised their tweets for accuracy after the fact.
“At Rnc meeting @MikeHuckabee just said fed govt shouldn’t help women w who can’t control their libido w birth control,” Bash tweeted at first.
Bash clarified a short time later, “2b clear @MikeHuckabee said DEMS insult women thinking theyre helpless giving rx for birth control ‘b/c they cannot control their libido’”