Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who stepped down from the Fox News Channel recently to consider a run for the White House, denied Wednesday he was referring to the cable channel's women when he lamented the very foul language used by his associates in New York City.
While promoting his book, "God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy," Huckabee told Des Moines radio host Jan Mickelson last Friday he personally experienced severe culture shock listening to "trashy" women spew obscenities.
"Six-and-a-half years of traveling to New York every week to work – I mean it's one thing to go as a guest, a visitor, a tourist – if you go to work and you're in that, sort of ... hotbed of the New York culture for a while, for someone like me, I thought, 'Man, this is a different planet!' And I came more and more to realize that the cultural divide is significant."
Huckabee then gave Mickelson a specific example about working in the Big Apple.
"It's one those things where in a business meeting that you might have in the South, or in the Midwest there in Iowa, you would not have people who would just throw the F-bomb and use gratuitous profanity in a professional setting," Huckabee explained.
"In New York, not only do the men do it, but the women do it," he said. "My gosh, this is worse than locker-room talk."
"This would be considered totally inappropriate to say these things in front of a woman. And for a women to say them in a professional setting, we would only assume that this is a very – as we would say in the South, 'That's just trashy!'"
Listen to Mike Huckabee talk about "trashy" associates in New York:
On his website Wednesday, Huckabee forcefully denied his remarks were referring to his associates at the TV network, which is headquartered in New York City.
"I spoke of the profanity used in normal conversations in business settings in New York, but neither in the book nor in interviews said or even intimated that I was speaking about the 'women of Fox News.'"
"Frankly, I never conducted 'business meetings' at Fox News," he added. "I wasn't there to do business, but to host a show. I conducted a lot of actual business in New York for several of my various companies that had nothing to do with Fox News."
Less than two weeks ago, Huckabee appeared on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart discussing part of his book in which he claimed rap star Jay-Z has been exploiting his wife, Beyoncé, "as a sex object."
"She is a terrific dancer – with the explicit moves best left for the privacy of her bedroom," Huckabee wrote.
"Does it occur to him (Jay-Z) that he is arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object?"
In his book, Huckabee also questions President Obama's parenting methods.
"Jay-Z and Beyoncé have been to the White House numerous times, but how can it be that the Obamas let Sasha and Malia listen to that trash?" he wrote.
In March 2013, as WND reported, the women of Fox News were actually immortalized in a music video by Texas singer/songwriter Austin Cunningham called "The Girls On Fox News."
The song did not focus on the language of the female anchors and reporters, but rather their brains and beauty.
The tune is upbeat and replete with jokes, including a catchy chorus proclaiming:
Oh, I want a girl like the girls on Fox News
Everyone is beautiful, anyone you choose
Whoever does the hiring knows how to light my fuse
I want a girl like the girls on Fox News.
The song can be purchased on iTunes, and the YouTube video of the song has more than 1.6 million hits.
See the video of "The Girls on Fox News":