Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Wednesday ripped into President Barack Obama's post-Ferguson summit, saying "thugs and rioters and mob members" were
invited to the White House "to sit down and have a conversation."
"When people are breaking the law, they don't get an invitation to the White House. They ought to be getting an invitation to the big house," Huckabee said on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV.
"And this is not about race," he added. "This is about law and order."
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Huckabee said he appreciated the comments of
former NBA star Charles Barkley and others, who have said that Martin Luther King Jr. would be appalled at the violence in Missouri.
"This violates everything that [King] gave his life for, which was nonviolent protest, and if you think something is wrong, then go through the proper authorities, go through the proper law, and if you violate the law, then suffer willingly for having done so.
"This is just an anathema to everything that the civil rights movement was truly all about and what it accomplished."
Looting and violence broke out after the grand jury’s decision was announced last week.
Civil rights activists, including Al Sharpton, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and others, have derided the decision.
In a show of support, four members of the
Congressional Black Caucus appeared on the House floor Monday night doing the "Hands Up, Don’t Shoot" gesture, a move Huckabee characterized as "foolish and dangerous" as well as dishonest since it flies in the face of the sworn testimony in the case.
"It's just incredibly dangerous that you have members of Congress on the floor of Congress holding up their hands in the 'hands up, don't shoot' position as if to say that somehow that is going to get you shot," Huckabee said.
"I'm going to tell you something: What gets you shot is when you grab a police officer's gun and you lunge at him and you try to hit him in the face.
"This nonsense that telling young people don't hold up your hands because that's going to get you in trouble, and instead I guess what they're teaching them is go loot a store, beat up a cop, reach for his gun, hope you get it before he does — this is not only foolish and dangerous but it's really on the verge of anarchy," Huckabee said.
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"I'm just disgusted that you have NFL players, politicians, and others who, no matter what the evidence reveals, no matter how many sworn testimonies show that Darren Wilson — it's a tragedy that the young man got shot, but this is a young man that just roughed up a store owner, just robbed a store, and now he's going after a cop's gun ...
"It's a horrible thing that he was killed, but he could have avoided that if he'd have behaved like something other than a thug."
Huckabee blasted Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon as the most "most derelict governor I've ever seen in face of the kind of duty that he should have exercised" during the racial unrest in Ferguson.
"His use of the National Guard was disgusting and deplorable," Huckabee continued.
"There's no point in bringing the guard in if you're not going to put them in front of the stores and keep people from running in and looting them. Gov. Jay Nixon, if he finishes out his term, will do it with disgrace because of the absolutely just disgusting manner in which he's handled this."