Michael Dale Huckabee (born August 24, 1955 in Hope, Arkansas) is an American Baptist minister, political commentator, and former politician who served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomination in both 2008 and 2016. He was the host of the talk show Huckabee, which ran on the Fox News Channel from 2008 to 2015, and has run on TBN since October 2017. He paused the show in January 2015 in order to explore a potential bid for the presidency. From April 2012 through December 2013, he hosted a daily radio program, The Mike Huckabee Show, on weekday afternoons for Cumulus Media Networks. Huckabee is the author of several best-selling books, co-founder of the Kids Guide to Fighting Socialism, an ordained Southern Baptist Pastor noted for his evangelical views, a musician, and a public speaker. He was also a political commentator on The Huckabee Report.
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Mike Huckabee's visit to Shiloh marks new era in Evangelical ties to Israel - opinion On January 14, 1947, Fraser Wilkins of the State Department’s Near East Division sent a secret memorandum to State Department officials. Wilkins was the desk officer for Palestinian affairs at the time, and he detailed seven “factors” upon which United States policy vis-a-vis the British Mandate entity was based. Among them, he wrote: “continued uncertainty and uncertainty regarding the Palestine question... is distressing to Christians everywhere because the Christian interest... tends to become submerged in an Arab-Jewish controversy.” Some 78 years later, the new US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a Baptist pastor, visited the Shiloh archaeological site (rediscovered by American Edward Robinson, the “father of Biblical geography” back in 1838), spoke personal words of spiritual meaning, and met with the leaders of the Yesha (Judea and Samaria Council), representing the over half a million Jews residing in the areas of the former Mandate not yet under full Israeli sovereignty. A new era, following on from the first Donald Trump presidential administration and the ambassadorship of David M. Friedman, is beginning. (Jerusalem Post 5/14/24) READ MORE>>>>> Huckabee becomes first overtly evangelical ambassador to Israel For the first time since creation of the modern state of Israel, an overtly evangelical pastor has been confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the small Middle Eastern country. On Wednesday, April 9, the U.S. Senate confirmed Trump nominee Mike Huckabee to the post. He is anticipated to take up residence in Israel as soon as next week. The vote was 53 to 46, with Democrat John Fetterman of Pennsylvania joining all Senate Republicans to confirm the former Southern Baptist pastor. (Baptist News Global 4/7/25) READ MORE>>>>> Christian Zionism hasn’t always been a conservative evangelical creed – churches’ views of Israel have evolved over decades During confirmation hearings, Mike Huckabee, President Donald Trump’s nominee as ambassador to Israel, told senators that he would “respect and represent the President,” not his own views. But the Baptist minister’s views on the Middle East – and their religious roots – came through. “The spiritual connections between your church, mine, many churches in America, Jewish congregations, to the state of Israel is because we ultimately are people of the book,” he said on March 25, 2025, in response to a question from a senator. “We believe the Bible, and therefore that connection is not geopolitical. It is also spiritual.” Huckabee is one of the GOP’s most prominent “Christian Zionists” – a phrase often associated with conservative evangelicals’ support for Israel. (The Conversation 4/2/25) READ MORE>>>>> Netanyahu meets Evangelical American leaders in Washington Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has wrapped up a meeting with Evangelical American community leaders in Washington. Those in attendance included former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is US President Donald Trump’s nominee to become the next US ambassador to Israel. Jewish Insider reported earlier today that Netanyahu is not currently scheduled to meet with American Jewish leaders, with whom he has had a rockier relationship over the years. (Times of Israel 2/3/25) READ MORE>>>>> Huckabee as Trump’s pick for Israel ambassador is a win for Christian Zionism. Here’s why. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heralded the success of a pro-Israel Christian ministry as a struggle akin to Israel’s own. “I remember when you began. Once you were one of a handful of brave voices in the wilderness,” Netanyahu said in a livestream broadcast from Jerusalem to Washington D.C., where a crowd of about 5,000 gathered for the Christians United for Israel annual summit in July 2019. “But thanks to your leadership, now there are millions of millions devout Christians who stand with Israel.” That 2019 summit was a victory lap for Christians United for Israel and its founder, Texas televangelist pastor John Hagee. The ministry had built considerable political clout over the course of 13 years to the point of helping shape policy decisions in President-elect Donald Trump’s first term. That included securing David Friedman’s appointment as ambassador to Israel and the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv moving to Jerusalem. (USA Today 11/22.24) Read More>>>>> Christian media figures may face defamation trials before November election Conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza helped create the 2000 Mules movie and its companion book. Both claim some 2,000 human “mules” harvested 400,000 fake ballots to steal the 2020 election from Trump. The film has aired on Christian TV networks, was shown in hundreds of churches and was promoted by Metaxas, Andrew Wommack, Charisma magazine, MovieGuide, and Mike Huckabee, the honorary national chairman of My Faith Votes. But the movie’s claims are false. One of the alleged “mules” was a Black man named Mark Andrews. The film used footage of Andrews during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s former show on Fox News, and a photo of Andrews was published in a companion book published by Salem-owned Regnery Publishing. The photo caption said Andrews was engaged in “organized crime.” Andrews sued D’Souza, Salem Media, Regnery and the organization True the Vote. Attorneys defending the film admitted in court they have no evidence to support the film’s wild claims. (Baptist News Global 6.4.24) Read More>>>>> Huckabee tears into Squad member AOC over Jesus misinformation On her Instagram account, AOC wrote: "In the story of Christmas, Christ was born in modern-day Palestine under the threat of a government engaged in a massacre of innocents" – clearly comparing the plight of the infant Jesus with that of Palestinian children. She continued: "Mary and Joseph, displaced by violence and forced to flee, became refugees in Egypt with a newborn waiting to one day return home. Thousands of years later, right-wing forces are violently occupying Bethlehem" – which, she argued, caused the Christian community there to cancel Christmas Eve celebrations. (Steve Jordahl/ American Family News 12/23/23) READ MORE>>>>> Mike Huckabee unabashedly supports Trump, Israel. Here’s why Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has his eye on November 2024, when he imagines former US president Donald Trump will regain the White House and his influence in Israel. This week, Huckabee toured southern border communities devastated by the October 7 Hamas attack. The Evangelical pastor, whose daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders served as Trump’s press secretary during his White House years, has not let the January 6 Capitol Hill riots or misconduct accusations dim his support for the former president, who he holds remains a great friend of the Jewish state. (Mayaan Jaffe-Hoffman/Jerusalem Post 12/23/23) READ MORE>>>>> |
Feb 23, 2023: Rolling Stone reports: The Christian Nationalist Machine Turning Hate Into Law
Founded in Aug. 2020, NACL is tied to top Christian spiritual and political leaders. The group’s advisory board includes onetime presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — the former governor of Arkansas and father of the new governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders — Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, and Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel. (Liberty Counsel is a frequent litigant before the Supreme Court; the head of its ministry, Rolling Stone exposed, bragged of praying with SCOTUS justices.) March 30, 2023: Religion News Service reports: In addition, some influential evangelicals are all in for a second Trump term. This past weekend, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who courted Christian conservatives in his own 2008 and 2016 presidential runs, endorsed Trump for 2024. Even a refusal to endorse Trump can be a pocket endorsement. Robert Jeffress, pastor of Dallas’ First Baptist Church, who prayed at Trump’s rally, told The New York Times earlier this year, “Keeping my powder dry might be the best thing for the president.”
June 2, 2023: Media Matters reported: TBN's Lyndsay Keith joined former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on the May 20 edition of his TBN program, Huckabee, where she said, “You know, a lot of times news comes to you through a lens, a liberal lens or a conservative lens, and we have opportunities to show through a biblical lens.”
May/June 2018: Politico: Church of The Donald
The Music City campus of the Trinity Broadcasting Network is about a half-hour drive from Music City itself, in a placid Nashville suburb on a bend in the Cumberland River where the main road through town is called the Johnny Cash Parkway. TBN, America’s largest Christian television network, acquired the complex in 1994 after the death of country singer Conway Twitty, who had operated it as a sprawling tourist attraction he called Twitty City. Last year, TBN renovated Twitty’s personal auditorium, leveling the floor, adding large neon signs and a faux-brick backdrop under the original Corinthian columns. The resulting TV set looks like an urban streetscape framed by a Greek temple. On a February night, in his large office just above the auditorium, the network’s biggest star is making last-minute plans for what’s shaping up to be a busy evening. First, Mike Huckabee fields some logistics for dinner at his nearby condo, where he will host three couples who won the privilege in a charity auction. He takes a call from the actor Jon Voight, who tells Huckabee he is free to do an interview about Israel. (Huckabee leaves the next day for Jerusalem, where TBN opened another studio a few years ago.) He checks with one of his producers about an old “Laugh-In” clip Huckabee had requested. “We aren’t paying $6,500 for it, good gosh!” he laughs when he hears the cost of the snippet. “Did they point a gun at your head and wear a ski mask when you asked that?” (They decide not to use it.) May 14, 2011: Huckabee announced on his Fox News show that he would not be a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. January 3, 2008: Huckabee won the Iowa Republican caucuses, receiving 34% of the electorate and 17 delegates, compared with the 25% of Mitt Romney, who finished second, receiving 12 delegates; Fred Thompson, who came in third place and received three delegates; John McCain, who came in fourth place and received three delegates; and Ron Paul, who came in fifth place and received two delegates. March 4, 2008: Huckabee withdrew from seeking the candidacy as it became apparent he would lose in Texas, where he had hoped to win, and that John McCain would get the 1,191 delegates required to win the Republican nomination. |
July 15, 1996: Huckabee was sworn in as the 44th Governor of Arkansas.
May 8, 1978: Huckabee graduated from Ouachita Baptist University completing his bachelor's degree in religion.
May 25, 1974: Huckabee married Janet McCain.