Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Monday defended his statement that the nuclear deal with Iran "will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven," telling radio host David Webb that "you're an idiot" if you don't believe the Iranians want to destroy Israel.
Huckabee prefaced his comments by saying that he's visited the former concentration campaign in Auschwitz three times and visits Israel regularly.
"I've been to Auschwitz three times," Huckabee said. "When I talked about marching to the door of the oven it is because I've stood at the door of the oven in Auschwitz, three times. I've been going to Israel since 1973. I've visited dozens of times with Holocaust survivors. Some who in ways I can't even imagine survived Auschwitz."
Huckabee said the Iranian government is clear that they "will kill Jews" and "you're an idiot" if you don't believe they will do it.
"Here's the point, when people say they're going to kill you and they keep saying it, you're an idiot if you don't start believing it," said Huckabee. "And when we take lightly the threat that the Iranian government has made -- we're not talking about some wild-eyed blogger, we're talking about the official Iranian government, promising, not just threatening, promising that they will kill Jews."
"One of the most outrageous things is they're so glad that Israel is in one place they don't have to go hunt them down all over the world. They can just destroy Israel and they get rid of the Jews. I mean, those are kind of things that we have now accepted as normal behavior from a government and I just can't imagine what the president was thinking in making such a deal."
