Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told an Iowa radio host Friday that he takes nothing back from a speech he delivered earlier this year in which he joked about pretending to be transgender in high school "when it came time to take showers in PE."
Huckabee, responding to a question from Iowa radio host Steve Deace, agreed that the amount of publicity his comments received was "absolutely an example" of misplaced priorities.
"And by the way," added Huckabee, "I take nothing back from that speech. I'm kinda glad it's posted because people -- if they watch the whole clip -- what they'll see is that I'm giving a commonsense answer to the insanity going on out there."
"Everyone wants to be politically correct, everybody wants to be loved by the media and loved by the left, loved by the elitists. But I know I'm not gonna be, so let me just get it over with. I'd rather be a commonsense candidate for people who did take their brains to work today," Huckabee added Friday.
Huckabee said at the 2015 National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee when discussing transgender laws that he wished he could have pretended to be transgender in high school when it came time to shower after gym class.
"Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE," said Huckabee. "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?"
Huckabee previously said last week about his transgender comments that, "nobody ever asks me about it except the media, they're the only ones who seem to be stirred up about it."
Although, BuzzFeed News independently reported on the clip Huckabee's comments were first noted by Right Wing Watch of People for the American Way.
