Fox & Friends Selectively Edits CMA Exec's Email Criticizing Mike Huckabee

By Heather — March 4, 2018

For anyone that blinked and missed it, apparently Mike Huckabee was appointed to, and then promptly resigned from the Country Music Awards Foundation after criticism by members of the industry, fans, and Monument Records co-president Jason Owen, who is gay.

This, of course, had Huckabee's friends on Fox terribly upset, and on this Saturday's Fox & Friends, his buddies on the curvy couch took up for the poor picked on Huckabee and how horribly unfair it was for anyone to consider his appointment to the charity offensive.

To no one's surprise, they decided to omit the opening portion of Owen's statement about Huckabee, and the fact that the man is gay.

Here's more on that from The Tennessean:

Less than one day after his appointment was announced, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has resigned from the CMA Foundation board of directors, following criticism from multiple members of the country music industry.

"The CMA Foundation has accepted former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s resignation from its board of directors, effective immediately," said Amber Williams, CMA vice president of communications and talent relations.

The announcement follows criticism from members of the country music industry, as well as country music fans.

Jason Owen, co-president of Monument Records and owner at Sandbox Entertainment, called the appointment a "grossly offensive decision" in an email to the association's CEO Sarah Trahern and CMA Foundation executive Tiffany Kerns.

Owen wrote that due to Huckabee’s election to the CMA Foundation’s board, neither his companies, nor anyone they represent would continue to support the foundation.

Owen and his husband Sam are fathers to a young son and are expecting twins. Owen said that Huckabee’s stance on the LGBTQ community “made it clear my family is not welcome in his America.”

“The CMA has opened their arms to him, making him feel welcome and relevant,” Owen wrote. “Huckabee speaks of the sort of things that would suggest my family is morally beneath his and uses language that has a profoundly negative impact upon young people all across this country. Not to mention how harmful and damaging his deep involvement with the NRA is. What a shameful choice.”

Here's how they covered the story in the segment above:

HEGSETH: Anyway, there's another headline out today. Governor Mike Huckabee, our friend, who we love, he... I didn't know this, but he was on the board of the CMA.

EARHARDT: He just got on the board, like a week ago.

HEGSETH: Oh really?

EARHARDT: Maybe a day ago. It was like an Anthony Scaramucci thing, just a few hours.

HEGSETH: Ten days, but it was great. So he joined the board of the Country Music Awards and he's a known conservative and everyone knows his political views. Well, it was short-lived, for a reason and here is what the music executive, Jason Owen said about this. listen to what the rep for the CMA said:

Huckabee... uses language that has a profoundly negative impact upon young people all across this country. Not to mention how harmful and damaging his deep involvement with the NRA is. What a shameful choice.

So, there was immediate blow back that he was a member of this board. And we've seen Governor Mike Huckabee play music, too.

JENKINS: He's a great musician.

HEGSETH: He's a great musician. He loves charity. He's an amazing person. He's got an amazing family. He loves this country, and apparently....unacceptable for the CMA.

EARHARDT: And that's exactly what he said. He said, I am here, I'm serving on this board because I want to put instruments into the hands of young kids. Let's listen to what he said about the criticism and the backlash about him serving on that board.

HUCKABEE: That our country is at a place where on the one arena where people ought to be able to get together, putting aside anything from race, or ethnicity, or religion, or politics, or heritage, or anything, that we could come together and celebrate that one part of life that's civilizes us, which is the arts. And when we can't have that, andI fear that our civilization may not be long for this earth, if that doesn't civilize us a little more. […]

This shouldn't be about my views on marriage, which are Biblical and traditional. It shouldn't be about my politics, which are conservative. It should be about kids getting musical instruments. That's all this was ever about for me.

HEGSETH: Of course, no. iI this case it's Hollywood or Nashville, I should say for country music. In the other case with Delta, it was sort of corporate culture. Again, political correctness is insidious. It goes everywhere.

EARHARDT: I was so shocked. Aren't you shocked though that conservative country music, the people who listen to country music. That's middle America. That's the south. He represents that. Most of the people who listen to country music they go to church on Sundays. They love mike Huckabee. I was just shocked that the CMA, that the board did this.