This article is published in partnership with Time.com. The original version can be found here.
By Alissa Greenberg @Alissaleewrites
Comments on the pending deal between the U.S. and Iran by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee have sparked controversy after he compared the deal to “marching [Israel] to the door of the oven.”
Huckabee’s comments to the conservative website Breitbart, an apparent reference to the Holocaust that would seem to equate U.S. President Barack Obama with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, immediately drew criticism from across the aisle.
U.S. Representative for Florida and head of the Democratic National Committee Deborah Wasserman-Schultz called for an apology for what she called “cavalier analogies” to Nazi death camps. The National Jewish Democratic Council echoed that call, saying in a statement, “Republicans have fallen over themselves to speak out against Donald Trump’s outrageous rhetoric on immigration and veterans. Will they now do the same and speak out against this unacceptable attack against President Obama that smears the memory of Holocaust victims … or will they stand by in silence and implicit approval?”
Huckabee is one of a dozen Republican candidates from the political elite who have been blindsided by the campaign of real estate magnate Donald Trump, whose raucously populist campaign has propelled him to the top of most polls of the 16-horse race. Huckabee told Fox News at the weekend he’d been essentially saying the same things as Trump for years.
Huckabee’s camp, however, chose to support his stance, highlighting the remarks in a series of tweets on Sunday:
Congress has until Sept. 17 to vote on the deal, which would trade nuclear proliferation limits for loosened economic sanctions.