Mike Huckabee Defends Tweet Linking Nancy Pelosi and MS-13 Gang: ‘It Was Satire’ (Video)

“If you don’t have a sense of humor, if you cannot handle satire, please don’t follow me,” the former Arkansas governor tells Fox News’ Shannon Bream

Mike Huckabee on Monday defended a tweet suggesting that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi employed MS-13 gang members, telling Fox News host Shannon Bream that the blowback was all just a misunderstanding and evidence that clearly people didn’t understand “satire.”

“It was satire,” he told Bream, brushing aside the controversy. “I tell people all the time and I regularly post on my Twitter account. If you don’t have a sense of humor, if you cannot handle satire, please don’t follow me.”

The original joke from Huckabee on Saturday suggested that Pelosi was employing MS-13 gang members.

“Nancy Pelosi introduces her campaign committee for the take back of the House,” he tweeted with an image of tattooed members of the notorious gang.

https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/1010497564435730434

The former Arkansas governor rebuffed criticism of the tweet, which many have derided as racist and offensive.

“A lot of people are trying to make this about race. What race was I talking about? I was talking about a criminal gang. A gang is not a race. People who murder, rape, who mutilate little children children, that’s not a race of people. That is a gang of criminals,” said Huckabee.

“There’s nothing to defend. I’m amazed that there were people out there defending MS-13 and somehow saying that we were nice enough to them. I don’t want to be nice to MS-13. I want them to be out of business. I appreciate the president for wanting to treat them as they are, as criminals and people that are predators to little children and need to be taken off of our streets.”

Just hours earlier, Huckabee had used his platform to accuse the Lexington, Va., restaurant Red Hen of “bigotry” after they refused to serve his daughter, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, because of her work for the president.

“Bigotry. On the menu at Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington VA,” he thundered. “Or you can ask for the ‘Hate Plate’. And appetizers are ‘small plates for small minds.’”

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