There's "a general pattern that we've seen," President Obama said in response to Mike Huckabee's
attempts to whip up outrage against the Iran deal, "that would be considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad." Huckabee, angling for attention as the race to get into the first Republican primary debate heats up, had likened Obama to Hitler, saying that Obama "will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven." Not just make it possible for someone else to carry out a genocide, but do so himself. By working to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
While that is a particularly gross comment, Obama pointed out that Huckabee is hardly alone in making absurd, offensive claims about this deal:
We've had a sitting senator call John Kerry Pontius Pilate. We've had a sitting senator who also happens to be running for president suggest that I'm the leading state sponsor of terrorism. These are leaders in the Republican Party.
Rather than backing down, Huckabee's campaign
doubled down with a series of tweets elaborating on the theme. Because coming up with the most hateful thing possible about Obama and the most fear-mongering thing to say about the Iran deal is a cheap and easy way to appeal to Republican primary voters while making sure they hear about what you said. The fact that such comments alienate everyone else isn't of much concern to a candidate like Huckabee.
Obama hit the nail on the head when he added "Maybe it’s just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines."