Newt on Radical Islam, President Lives in a ‘Fantasy World’

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich sat down with Breitbart’s own Steven K. Bannon and Alexander Marlow during a special edition of Breitbart News Sunday covering the weekend Iowa Freedom Summit. Gingrich focused in on the heart of his Saturday speech, addressing foreign policy with a special emphasis on the worldwide crisis of radical Islam, a fight that Newt says America is losing in the world today.

Newt Gingrich cited specific instances of foreign and domestic Islamic terrorist activities leading up to describing President Obama’s State of the Union Address as “extraordinarily delusional.” Gingrich then contrasted Obama’s foreign policy with that of President Ronald Reagan.

“This is where Ronald Reagan becomes a militant anti-communist. He’s the President of the Screen Actor’s Guild and in 1947 he’s a Democrat.” Gingrich began the story about the 40th United States President: “One night in ’47 he’s sitting, chatting with a guy who belongs to the screen actors guild who says, ‘Look, I’m a Stalinist, when we take over you’re the kind of guy we’re either going to kill or we’re going to put in prison.’ Reagan listens to him and thinks, ‘Ya know what he means by that is he’s a Stalinist and he wants to either kill me or put me in jail’ and Reagan thinks, ‘How could it have gotten this bad?’” So you see Reagan’s entire career for 44 years, from 1947 to 1991, we beat the Soviet empire, but even then our elites are saying, let’s not use the word beat, that’d be inappropriate, let’s not talk about how freedom survived and dictatorship failed, that’d be gloating.”

Marlow responded, “You’re talking about control of the language and that’s something that really resonated with me with the way the Democrats are handling their foreign policy. The only thing we really know about their plan is which words we aren’t going to use; we’re not going to call things radical Islamic terror, has to be ISIL, it can’t be ISIS or Islamic State. What do you make of their obsession with controlling the way we talk about these issues and not actually defining policy?”

Gingrich called Democrats “the party of trial lawyers, they’re the party of Hollywood, they’re the party of intellectuals,” adding, “All of those involve words and the Democrats have a passion about language, which is why they have hate speech, is if they can say you’re not allowed to say that, that’s hate speech, well then you can’t even think it.”

Gingrich clarified, “It’s not just Democrats. The initial deviation from defeating terrorism began under George W. Bush, because the State Department within months of 9/11 was saying, ‘Oh, you can’t talk about these people having anything to do with Islam, that would be totally wrong.’”

Marlow asked the former Speaker of the House to give Breitbart the bullet points of his speech.

Gingrich responded with, “We are losing the war with radical Islamists, this is mortally dangerous to our entire civilization and to us as people, we need to tell the truth about it. This President is hopeless. He lives in a fantasy world, as three different NBC reporters said after the State of the Union.” He called on Congress to spur a national debate on the issue with months of hearings, asking, “Is this something we have to defeat and what does defeat mean when it’s a worldwide movement?

Marlow asked Gingrich what he saw as key themes for 2016.

Gingrich pointed to Russian progression into Ukraine, “the continuous spread of radical Islamists,” and a “defense establishment which is much too bloated, much too Democratic.”

Marlow asked, “Who are the types of people who you think could show that sort of leadership and vision?”

Gingrich highlighted Scott Walker, saying he is “very fond of Scott,” calling him a “visionary.” He listed Rick Perry and John Kasich in the same league. Gingrich then highlighted Jeb Bush, saying, “it’s been a long time, but Jeb Bush at one time was one of the most creative and gutsy guys in American politics” during his reign as Florida governor. He then gave a mention to Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul. He called 2016, “the most open campaign since 1940.”

Bannon posed one final question: “The grand strategy that we would have to implement to defeat radical Islamic Jihad?”

First Gingrich called to, “Define clearly and publicly what it is and what you won’t tolerate.” Second, he listed, “To recognize that this is not a conventional war, you don’t think geographically,” going on to say America can train and empower foreign allied forces like Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. Third and finally, he stated, “Recognize that this requires a much more agile and much more capable State Department that is prepared to actually do something as opposed to talk.” Finally, he said, “Until you overhaul the State Department, you do not have the instrument you need to match the military. You cannot ask the military to do everything.”

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