SAN DIEGO — Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told a book signing on Tuesday that he believes Hillary Clinton is “very, very unlikely to be the Democrat nominee.”
Gingrich offered his remarks as part of his analysis of both the Democrats and Republicans in regard to the 2016 presidential race–as well as current race to replace John Boehner (R-OH) as Speaker of the House.
“Hillary’s answer to lies is to lie more,” he said of the former Secretary of State.
Gingrich also explained the appeal of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
“If you are a liberal you may be a little dissatisfied with Obama, but you’re not angry cause he’s broadly doing what you believe in. And of course ‘liberal’ includes most of Hollywood, most of the college professors, most of the news media.
“Bernie’s the true faith. They know that if you want total bureaucracy now, that Bernie’s available,” Gingrich said regarding what he estimated as about a third of liberals that would like to go further to the left. “This is after all a man whose honeymoon was in the Soviet Union.”
Gingrich compared Hillary’s problems to a layer cake.
The layer you’re looking at now is Benghazi, which will be on Thursday, and the emails. Then directly below the emails are Sheryl Mills who was earning a half million dollars at New York University negotiating with an Arab government while she was serving as Chief of Staff for the State Department and Huma Abedin, [Hillary’s] personal assistant who was earning more than the President of the United States working for two private companies while she was also serving in the State Department. Then you get below them, you get to the Clinton Foundation and I told people early on I didn’t see how she could run because you can’t put Bill Clinton near two billion dollars and not assume that there are just all sorts of things going on that you don’t want to see in public. This guy, he means well, he’s just really sloppy. And so he gets confused about what he’s doing and who he’s doing it with.
Gingrich followed jokingly clarified, “That was not a sexual innuendo,” and “You guys were not thinking about corruption.”
He went on to say that he believes Vice President Joe Biden will move toward running as the “safety net” candidate in case Clinton collapses.
Gingrich moved on to talk about the Republicans, calling that race “much more interesting.” He contended that no expert analysts in the country would have predicted Donald Trump and Ben Carson as the two leading candidates back in January of this year. “So when the expert analyst that didn’t know it comes in to tell you what it means now, they don’t know now, either.”
He added, “I don’t know.”
Gingrich painted Trump as “reality politics,” calling his candidacy “the American Idol of politics.”
“Here you got Mister Noisy and here you got Mister I’m-So-Quiet-I-Can’t-Believe-I’m-Here,” he said, referring to Trump and Carson, respectively.
Gingrich called 2016 GOP presidential candidate and former Ohio Governor John Kasich a very dear friend, a deputy, and a “younger brother” saying, “I can’t give him any good advice.”
Between Republican presidential candidates Trump, Carson, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Carly Fiorina, he said, there is 62 or 63 per cent of the support from the American people, according to Gingrich.
Gingrich also praised Trump: “This is a smart guy, he’s a little whacked, but he’s very smart. Frankly, having spent a lot of time in Washington [D.C.] I think we could use a little whack right now.”
He warned those who think Trump could not be president: “Why don’t you think that? Because he’s not the front runner? Because he’s not ahead in every state in the country? Because he has spent almost no money so far and still has 10 billion dollars left?”
Gingrich then compared Trump to former President Andrew Jackson. “Be careful what you ask for, but we do need somebody to shake up the system. We desperately need a new approach.”
Gingrich’s statement, “I like John Boehner,” was met with disapproval from the audience. However, Newt went on to say that Boehner is “also doing things that used to work in a world where they no longer work.” He continued, “So he’d get up every day and do exactly the right things for ten years ago and they don’t work anymore. And they don’t work anymore because you have a Republican base wants real change.” He said the 62 per cent of Republicans in the country that are very dissatisfied with the congressional leadership can’t be “that stupid,” and that it’s the leadership’s fault if they were.
“Don’t see the Freedom Caucus as a group of small-minded, negative people. See the Freedom Caucus as the symptom of the Trump, Carson, Cruz, Fiorina system. These are the folks saying hey guys, you don’t get it, it’s time for real change.”
Gingrich predicted (correctly) that Paul Ryan (R-WI) would announce Tuesday night regarding his potential candidacy for Speaker.
When asked what he thought of a potential run by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TX) run for Speaker, Gingrich told Breitbart News that he thought that could be a good idea as well. The primary task, Gigrich said, was that an incoming Speaker must listen to the Republican Party base.
Gingrich’s new book is a political thriller entitled Duplicity penned with the intention of competing with the left on the issues they have been winning. Callista Gingrich was signing copies of her new children’s book, Christmas in America.
The former Speaker told the crowd early in his presentation that the works, a potential movie project on George Washington and a social media project are part of a potential eleven-year project to engage Americans in the country’s history, leading up to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana
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