Newt Gingrich on Donald Trump’s Appeal: ‘He’s Running on Winning’

On Sunday, former Speaker of the House and 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (R-GA) appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and discussed Donald Trump’s candidacy, asserting that Trump’s appeal revolves around his focus on making Americans winners again.

Asked if Americans learned anything from Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Donald Trump, which prompted criticism of Trump’s lack of knowledge on foreign policy, Gingrich responded:

The truth is, no national leader knows anything about the head of Quds force; so they say they may have memorized the name; they don’t know what school he went to, they don’t know what faction he belongs to; they don’t know whether or not he was in Moscow recently. I mean, this is not presidential stuff. He’s going to hire a Secretary of State, he’s going to hire a national security adviser; he’s going to have a chairman of the Joint Chiefs; he’s going to have a Secretary of Defense. The real question is: so what would you do about them.

Speaking of Trump’s policies regarding immigration, Gingrich said:

First of all, we have no idea what the effect of Trump will be over six months or a year and how dramatically the messages will change. He’s now met with the head of the Mexican Chamber of Commerce; he’s about to meet with their board… I think he’s modulating; I think he is learning. The one thing I’ve always found to be true with Trump is: I think he learns faster than any other political figure I’ve known except Bill Clinton. And I think it’s a big mistake to assume that the Donald Trump who you saw yesterday is the Donald Trump you’re going to see a month from now.

Noting Ronald Reagan signed an immigration bill in 1986, believing that the United States would control its border, Gingrich continued, “Here we are 29 years later. The average American’s going, ‘I just want somebody who’s going to kick over the table, start a new game, and I don’t care about the details.’ He continued, “The reason Trump is having an impact, and the reason Carson, Fiorina and Cruz are having an impact, is, the four of them have to be seen as a team, in a sense, they represent the ‘We’re sick of all you regular guys.'”

Remarking that Americans want a profound change of the terms of government, Gingrich added:

They want somebody, they want them in different formats; they want calm, stable Dr, Carson; they want energetic Carly Fiorina; they want aggressive, hard-charging Ted Cruz; or they want bombastic, loud, (Trump) but he’s running on something nobody in this city understands: He’s running on winning. The heart of the Trump model is: “I will make us a winner again. Do you want to be a winner? If you’d like to be a winner, I’ll make us a winner.” People come up with all these policy questions and he goes, “How would you like to win?” And Americans out there go, “I like winning. Winning sounds pretty good to me.”