On Wednesday’s broadcast of “On the Record” on the Fox News Channel, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich likened Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump to Andrew Jackson and predicted the so-called Republican establishment would get behind Trump should he be the eventual nominee.
Partial transcript as follows:
VAN SUSTEREN: Why is Trump a phenomenon? What is it about him?
GINGRICH: Well, I’m doing a column this week on “The Art of the Deal,” the book he wrote back in the 80s, because I read it over Christmas and found it was very helpful.
Trump here is very big in every way. I mean, he is big financially. He is big in his ideas. He is big in his aggressiveness. He’s physically big. And I think that communicates to a country.
[19:10:04] If you are a typical American, you recently have seen the Saudis and Iranians going head-to-head. The world markets are falling for 3 straight days. The North Korean setting up a hydrogen weapon. You now have reports of various immigrants in Germany who are raping and molesting women.
You know, all these things are going on around you and you think the world is losing its mind. I want somebody really strong. And in comes Donald. And Trump, he looks really strong. He may not be totally what they believe in, but he looks strong enough to try it out. And I think there is almost like Andrew Jackson, a very substantial part of the American people saying I would rather take a risk on him than on the current system continuing to decay.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, fast forward. Let’s assume that he wins the G.O.P. nomination. It’s now August. Does the G.O.P. establishment get behind him 100 percent?
GINGRICH: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: Yes, you think so?
GINGRICH: Yes, because the alternative is Hillary and Bill Clinton.
VAN SUSTEREN: And so you have no doubt in your mind that people won’t just sort of stay home, the people that can —
(CROSSTALK)
GINGRICH: I think people — when the race gets down to everything we’re learning about Hillary Clinton; the degree to which she has used the State Department to take care of Bill; the amount of money that poured through with people doing business with her; the degree to which she has lied about virtually everything, the degree to which she had secrets on her emails; the degree to which she is lying about Benghazi.
Take the total picture and think to yourself, do you really want this in the White House? And I think at least for our party and for our base, the answer is going to be overwhelmingly no. And the people are going to say whoever the Republican nominee is, I am for them.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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