Mike Huckabee speaks to Megyn Kelly on Fox News Monday night. Fox News/Screenshot

Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate, defended Donald Trump on Fox News Monday night.

After a 2005 audio recording leaked on Friday of Trump making obscene comments about women, Republicans withdrew their endorsements of the candidate in an unprecedented wave.

But Huckabee offers another reason why so many Republicans abandoned their presidential candidate: They're afraid he's going to shake up the establishment.

"A lot of these bed-wetting, hand-wringing Republicans — they're not afraid Donald Trump is gonna lose. They're scared to death he's gonna win," Huckabee told Megyn Kelly. "And if he wins, he's going to mess up the neat little package of fun they have because they all play to the donor class, and Donald Trump is coming to make big changes in the way that these institutions go."

Huckabee has vocally endorsed Trump since early May, after he dropped out of the race in February.

In the leaked video, Trump told Billy Bush aboard an "Access Hollywood" bus how he unsuccessfully tried to "f---" a married woman, how he wanted to kiss an actress he was about to appear with on a soap opera, and how you can "grab them by the p---y" when you're a star. He had married his third wife, Melania, months before the incident.

Kelly pushed Huckabee that many Republicans were having a "come to Jesus moment of: Can I actually look my daughter, my son, in the face and say, 'I in essence endorsed that conduct.'"

"It's not a big surprise that he is crude and he is vulgar. We all knew that. We knew he wasn't a Sunday school teacher," Huckabee responded. "Nobody's endorsing what he said. My gosh, not even his own family is endorsing it."

"He's like Captain Quint in the original movie 'Jaws,' Huckabee continued. "He's vulgar, he's salty ... He's the guy who's gonna save your butt and save your family. ... Hillary is the shark. She's going to eat your boat, she's going to have open borders, immigration out the kazoo. So the choice is: Do you vote for Captain Quint who's going to save your family, or do you vote for the shark?"

Kelly reminded Huckabee that the shark ate Quint at the end of the movie.