Republicans voted for a stopgap continuing resolution to help the military, not because they wanted deficits, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Friday.
"They had to give some ground," Huckabee told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"That's what they did. I believe that the reason that some of the Republicans voted for this was not because they love deficit. I want to be very clear. I don't think it's going to be fair to attack some of the Republicans who, reluctantly holding their noses, voted for it."
They voted, he continued, because they have a commitment to the military.
"They cannot continue to allow sequestration to cripple our ability to train, prepare, and be ready," Huckabee said. "We're asking so much of these men and women in uniform. And I think for many of them, it's almost a matter of we have got to do this, even if the results and the consequences bring us something that we absolutely loathe."
President Donald Trump early Friday signed the stopgap funding measure into law, ending a short-lived federal government shutdown after Congress voted just before 6 a.m., bypassing a midnight deadline.
The bill will extend government funding through March 23, keeping agencies open while raising military and domestic by nearly $300 billion over two years. The measure extends the federal debt ceiling to March 2019.
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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