Donald Trump may have dropped out of Thursday night's GOP debate, but if rival GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has his way, his prized center-stage podium wouldn't remain empty.
"I'm going to show up and I'll be happy to take that empty podium that he's going to be vacating," the former Arkansas governor told
Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "I would love the opportunity."
And while Trump's announcement and feud with Fox News and its star anchor, Megyn Kelly, is making headlines, Huckabee said he thinks most Iowa voters don't care about the "drama."
"I think this is a lot of drama that involves the networks and the candidates, but most of the people in Iowa are more concerned about their jobs," said Huckabee. "They're concerned about whether or not the candidates are going to support an industry like ethanol that gives them 75,000 jobs, billions of investment.
"I just think that the insider baseball kind of drama is probably not the major thing that people talk about. I guarantee you it is not going to come up in my town halls today. That's not what people are going to be asking me about."
Huckabee has visited all 99 counties in Iowa, and pointed out to the program that nobody has cast a vote yet.
"I hear it's a two man race, now it's who's going to be third," said Huckabee. "The people of Iowa will make that decision next Monday. They always do. They always surprise the networks that have it all figured out.
"And I think it's kind of interesting that every four years we have this played out. Every four years something happens that nobody saw coming. And we never seem to learn from that."
Meanwhile, Huckabee said he has a good relationship with Trump and most of the GOP candidates, and doesn't consider them his enemies. And as far as Democrats are concerned, he conceded that Sen. Bernie Sanders is right on his argument about the country being controlled by "big money politics."
"Let's not kid ourselves, most of the campaigns are funded by the same big Wall Street hedge fund billionaire donors, whether they're Democrat or Republican," said Huckabee.
"People wonder how come things never change. Republicans get in power, Democrats get in power, because the same donor class feeds the political class and the politics are basically bought and paid for."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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