Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee declined Wednesday to wade into the cultural discussion surrounding transgender issues, saying he’d rather spend time talking about job creation and national security.
“What people talk to me about is not some speech I made four months ago and it’s not some cultural issue. People talk to me about the loss of their job. They talk to me about the threats to this country. And that’s what I’m focused on, and it’s why I’m running for president,” the Republican told reporters in Little Rock at a press conference.
“It’s not to entertain the masses with comments on the culture news of the day,” he added. “So I’ll continue to focus on the things that I think people are far more plugged into.”
His comments came one day after landing in the headlines for a comment he made in February, wishing he were a woman in a high school “when it came time to take showers in PE.”
“I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’ You’re laughing because it sounds so ridiculous doesn’t it?” he said at the 2015 National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee.
Video of the joke — in which he was referring to a controversial ordinance in Houston to make accommodations for transgender people — was uploaded to YouTube over the weekend by World Net Daily and picked up more prominently by BuzzFeed on Tuesday.
The joke received outsized attention in part because the timing of the video coincided with the buzz surrounding Caitlyn Jenner’s appearance on the new Vanity Fair cover as a female.
The comments were notable because transgender people say their decisions aren’t driven by sexuality and are a matter of personal identity: they identify with a gender they were not assigned at birth.
Asked Wednesday if he stood by the joke and if he considers transgender people a threat to children, Huckabee criticized the media for focusing on something he said months ago.
“I’ll let people read into whatever they want to,” he said. “Nobody ever asks me about it except from the media — the only people who seem to be stirred up about it.”
Pressed on whether he sees issues involving transgender people as a potentially big social issue for the next president — in much the same way that President Obama faced pressure to weigh in on rights involving gays and lesbians — Huckabee said he wished Obama had paid more attention to other issues.
“I sure wish he’d been a little more focused on what ISIS is doing beheading Christians in the Middle East,” he said. “And I think it was just yesterday that a person was murdered just for being a homosexual in the Middle East by ISIS. That’s a serious issue. I don’t know why we don’t talk about the threat.”
The former governor, who most recently hosted his own weekly interview show on Fox News, has become known for having a sense of humor, though at times it has gotten him in trouble with his critics.
“You wouldn’t like me if I were as colorless as you’re hoping me to be, you know that,” Huckabee quipped when asked by a reporter if he ever regrets his tendency to speak extemporaneously. “It’s not that I like to do it. It’s that I can’t help myself sometimes.”
Since launching his second bid for president last month, Huckabee has found himself as a top tier candidate in most public polls. He tied for third place with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at 10%, according to CNN/ORC International’s recent survey.
While Huckabee, a former pastor, was boosted with support from conservative evangelicals during his 2008 bid, the Republican candidate is emphasizing a more populist message this time around and drew a stark contrast with his rivals this week by expressing outright opposition to Social Security reform.