Mike Huckabee

Michael Dale Huckabee (born August 24, 1955) is an American politician, diplomat, and Baptist minister serving as the 29th United States ambassador to Israel since 2025. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, and ran for his party's presidential nomination in both 2008 and 2016. He is the father of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the current governor of Arkansas since 2023 and a former White House press secretary.

Huckabee was the host of the talk show Huckabee, which ran on Fox News from 2008 to 2015, and on TBN from October 2017 to January 2025. From April 2012 through December 2013, he also hosted a daily radio program, The Mike Huckabee Show, on weekday afternoons for Cumulus Media Networks. Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor noted for his evangelical views, a musician, and a public speaker. He has written several books and was previously a political commentator on The Huckabee Report.

In the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, Huckabee won the 2008 Iowa Republican caucuses and finished second in delegate count and third in both popular vote and number of states won, behind John McCain and Mitt Romney. Huckabee ran again for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election but withdrew early in the primary following the Iowa caucus. On November 12, 2024, it was announced that then–President-elect Donald Trump would be nominating Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel. He was sworn in on April 9, 2025, and presented his credentials to Israeli president Isaac Herzog on April 21.