Huckabee sounds off on Romney's speech

Brzezinski:  Governor, if I could ask a question back on Mitt Romney, he is giving his speech today, this morning carried live on most of the cable networks here on MSNBC. It is going to get a lot of play and there is going to be the presence of a former president there which will add to it.  What do you make of it? I just want to hear the answer to one of Joe's questions that we didn't get. What do you make of the timing of the speech and do you think you are the reason?

Huckabee:  Well, I don't think I'm the reason. I think it is a good thing, because he has had a lot of questions. Frankly, if somebody wants to ask me that question and will give me an opportunity to go live on all the networks and talk about my faith, sign me up. I'm ready to go.

Scarborough: I disagree, I think Jesus is the reason for the reason, and I think Mike Huckabee is the reason for the speech. Look at those polls.

Brzezinski: You have been saying that all morning and the Romney campaign does not agree with that, at least Ann Romney, who I interviewed this week, says it was Mitt's decision to make a speech. It had nothing to do with Governor Huckabee. But Governor Huckabee, since I have you here, I would love to meet your wife.

Huckabee: I would love you to meet my wife. She is a delightful lady. She has put up with me for going on 34 years which in itself tells you she is extraordinarily patient and just forgiving woman to give me almost 34 years of marriage and three grown children.

Brzezinski:  We'll have to line that up then.

Shuster: From my years in Arkansas when I saw him. We didn't talk much about foreign policy when you were first governor, I don't think we talked about it at all. This week I think there was an exam of that a lot of us in the media glommed on to and that was apparently you didn't know about the National Intelligence Estimate story. Your staff took responsibility, saying they should have briefed you.

But it gets to the idea that being governor of Arkansas is not necessarily the best sort of foreign policy experience and that’s something that I think a lot of your critics are aiming at your direction.  How do you respond to them?

Huckabee: Well, I don't blame my staff. It is a situation where a report was released at 10:00 in the morning, the president hadn't seen it in four years and I'm supposed to see it four hours later.

There were 16 different agencies involved in accumulating the NIE report. Many of those agencies had classified documents. Nobody's seen, I guess except the president, all of the classified information. There was a section of the report that was declassified. I was in a wall to wall, nonstop campaign, because guys like you were trailing me with cameras and microphones all day on the trail.

We sat down to dinner and it was a gottcha question. Ok, have you seen the report that was released this morning?  And I wanted to say no because you guys have been with me all day, you know what I have been doing.

Scarborough:  And let me say this, for people that haven't run a campaign before, and I was only ran a little campaign every couple of years running for Congress. But a gubernatorial campaign or a senate campaign. You go nonstop. And a lot of times, you wake up the next morning; you are like oh my God, which happened.

I agree with you governor, in the fact, the second I saw the story, total gotcha story.

Let's move on.  After Iowa, obviously you are going to have to go to New Hampshire and you have to go to South Carolina.  Then it is Florida, New York, California. I need Howard Dean in here screaming all the states but they come fast and furious. How do you, even if you win in Iowa and let's say you win this South Carolina. Let's say even Florida, how to you then handle all the states that hit you on February 5? You won't have enough money, will you?|

Huckabee:  Well, actually, we raised more money in November alone than we had risen in the previous 10 months combined.  The money is beginning to come because the only reason we weren't raising money before is people said I just don't know if this guy can win.  I like him, like his message, he has the most executive experience anybody is running.  Nobody's run against the Clinton political machine except Mike Huckabee, he has run against it. He has beaten it four times.  Nobody else running for president has ever experienced the headwinds of the political machine that we are going to be up against next year.  I have.

So for all those reasons, people are now beginning it say in guy could win.  And, the same people that told me no several months ago because they didn't think I could win are looking at these polls and Joe, as you know, it's not just the ones in Iowa.  Now it's nationally and people are saying that I can win and in fact will win. Many of the polls show against Hillary, I've got the best chance of any Republican with the largest margin of actually winning.

Scarborough:  And of course a poll came out yesterday that had to make you smile, an Arkansas poll showed Huckabee ahead of Clinton; very interesting.

So we've been asking, the AP actually went around and asked candidates what was the worst job you that you ever had. Barack Obama, proving that he's had a very privileged life said ice cream guy, but yours was a department store employee. Tell us about it.

Huckabee: Yeah, I worked two jobs when I was a teenager, I worked at the radio station and then I also worked at J.C. Penney as a janitor, stocking the shelves. And I used to have to wipe out of glass doors and it used to irritate me, I would just get them all finished, somebody probably like you Joe, would come up and put his hands up against the glass. And I would have to go clean them off again.

Scarborough: Yeah, that is me, leaning in.

Huckabee:  See, Mika would never do that.  She would be very, very careful to use the handles of door. Not Joe, he would just go up there and touch the glass and put his fingerprints on it.

Brzezinski: Yeah.

Scarborough:  And you know where Willie Geist would be? He would be inside J.C. Penney hunting cougars.

Brzezinski:  Oh, governor. We're sorry, we apologize.

Scarborough: Governor, thank you so much for being with us. Congratulations. A remarkable week for you and I have a feeling it is going to be going this way for quite some time.

Brzezinski: It's been an amazing ride so far.

Huckabee:  Just remember, we were here first and so, you know, you put me on when nobody else was believing and it made a difference.  Thank you and I hope to do it again.

Scarborough:  All right.  Thank you so much, governor.  Greatly appreciate that.

Huckabee: Thanks.

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