WASHINGTON — In their most substantive remarks since the presidential election, former Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio called on the Republican Party to expand its focus to the nation's least fortunate, delivering an implicit, but sharp, rebuke to Mitt Romney's "47%" line.

"Both parties tend to divide Americans into 'our voters' and 'their voters,'" Ryan said at the Jack Kemp Foundation Leadership Awards Dinner in Washington Tuesday night, joining the chorus of Republicans moving away from the GOP nominee.

"Let’s be clear: Republicans must steer far clear of that trap," he continued, a line greeted with a loud round of applause from the audience minutes after saying he was "proud" of Romney. "We must speak to the aspirations and anxieties of every American. Ithe president has been very respectful of the faith community, and [evangelicals] overwhelmingly voted for him.... He will, in fact, be my first guest on the first television show that I do," Huckabee continued, pointing to the president's efforts to protect individuals' religious liberties.

Huckabee, who regularly serves as surrogate to the Trump administration while making media appearances, regularly comes to Trump's defense when some Christian leaders publicly denounce his presidency or policies.

When asked whether he takes seriously William Barber's accusation that Christians who support Trump are guilty of “theological malpractice that borders on a form of heresy,” Huckabee said he "totally" does not before laying blame on the Obama administration.

"If anything, they should’ve been concerned that more African Americans were unemployed under President Obama than had ever been,"