Huckabee says WH press corps being 'played for chumps,' urges reporters to get tougher

Former Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee empathizes with reporters being frustrated over the lack of information, especially over the recent matter of classified documents and President Biden, coming from the White House but he's urging them to push back harder instead of complaining.

"We're beginning to see a little bit of the frustration in the White House press briefing room, because [reporters] keep asking questions and they get stonewalled," Huckabee, who also ran for president in 2008 and 20167, said Thursday on the John Solomon Reports podcast. 

Classified materials have been found in Biden's Delaware home and at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., which Biden used after he was vice president.

When asked this week if more searches for documents were underway, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told the White House press corps, "I'm not going to comment from here."

She also said the administration is staying quiet on matters regarding the Justice Department.

"The people in that press room I think are finally realizing they're being played," Huckabee said. "They're being played for chumps. And if they keep sitting there and taking it that way, well, then they deserve it."

Huckabee also said the Justice Department and White House are playing hot potato with the subject of Biden and the classified documents.

Reporters are "told to go call the DOJ. They called the DOJ, and the DOJ tells them to talk to the White House," he said. "The White House says, 'Well, we can't discuss it.' And the DOJ says 'Oh yes they can. They can discuss anything they want to. They're not bound by any particular rules.' "  

Huckabee also said he hopes the press will step up their game and keep asking tough question. 

"I'm hoping that somewhere in that room other than a couple of Fox [News] journalists, there will be some people from the mainstream media that will say 'That's enough. These people are not being truthful. They're hiding criminal activity and it's time for us to expose it for what it is.' " Huckabee also said.