Mike Huckabee On Possible 2012 Run: Tune In Tomorrow

Mike Huckabee Pushes Back Against Reports He Won't Run For President, Announces Deadline For Decision

WASHINGTON – Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee kept the political world guessing Friday as to whether he’ll run for president, saying that anyone who claims to know what he’s decided and plans to announce on Saturday is speaking out of turn.

“You’re gonna hear people who act like they know all about it and they don’t,” Huckabee said during an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto.

Huckabee’s comments followed those of Ed Rollins, a close adviser who was quoted in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal earlier Friday as saying Huckabee won’t run. Rollins said Huckabee’s family has been advising him not to run for the last two weeks and the former governor is unlikely to pursue a bid.

But Huckabee said that he had not even told all the members of his family until Friday. He will announce his decision during his weekly television show, which airs on Fox News at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday. Fox has reportedly been pressuring Huckabee to make a decision one way or the other and clear up any legal concerns about him using his show to promote a political candidacy.

Huckabee, a fierce rival of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, also weighed in on the speech Romney delivered Thursday trying to defuse criticism of the health care law he signed into law in 2006.

“I’m not sure that he succeeded in explaining it,” Huckabee said, citing a Wall Street Journal editorial that he said “took [Romney] apart.”

“I felt that if Mitt Romney would come out and say, ‘We tried this in Massachusetts. That’s what states are supposed to do, is be laboratories of democracy. And we attempted this and it hasn’t really worked like we thought. So it’s not a good idea to try it on the national level,’ that would have been a smart play,” he said.

“It’s not what he did. It’s going to be something he’ll have to deal with. He could have ended it yesterday. Now he’s going to be dealing with it in every debate,” Huckabee added.

Huckabee said at the conclusion of his interview with Cavuto that he would announce his decision at the end of his own hourlong show.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot