During an appearance Monday on FOX News Channel’s FOX & Friends morning program, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) was asked to explain the “nightmare situation” the Republican Party establishment now faces with Donald Trump as an entrenched front-runner and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as one of two other major challengers.
“I think they live in a fantasy land right now,” he said. “Donald Trump is tapping into something in the country that is real. If you take Trump’s vote and Cruz’s vote and Carson’s vote—the three outsiders—they are at 62 percent in South Carolina, and they have been consistently above 60 percent everywhere in the country, if you pool together all of the insurgents.”
Gingrich said “there’s a message” in those numbers. He said Americans believe the country is “decaying” and that Washington is “the heart of that decay.”
“They want someone who is going to kick over the table and change things in Washington,” he said. “That’s why Cruz has done so well, and it’s why Trump has done so well.”
Co-host Brian Kilmeade noted that, in 2012, Mitt Romney’s money played a major role in propelling him to the GOP nomination, but that Trump had spent the least amount of money in the 2016 campaign so far. Gingrich quickly pointed out the media, particularly FOX News, had a role to play in the current political environment.
“That’s because of you guys. Donald Trump gets up in the morning and tweets to the entire planet at no cost, picks up the phone, calls you, has a great conversation for about eight minutes, which would’ve cost him a ton in commercial money, and meanwhile, his opponents are all out there, running around, trying to raise the money to buy an ad, and nobody believes the ad.”
After the FOX & Friends team stammered their way through a defense, noting that he did interviews with media outlets “big and small” when other candidates refused to do so, Gingrich came back to his original assessment.
“You could say Donald Trump is the candidate FOX & Friends invented. He was on your show more than any other. It was always a happy, positive conversation,” he said. “This is one of his great advantages. He loves what he is currently doing, and he is having a ball. That gives him more energy, and the fact that he can get back on his plane to go back home to get up in the morning and get back on his plane, it’s a pretty comfortable life for a presidential candidate.”
Gingrich was also asked how the “Bush money” would now split with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush out of the race. The former Speaker said 80 to 90 percent would now flow toward U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), while the rest—”a small amount,” he said—would flow toward Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
“If there was malpractice in politics, I think Jeb Bush would have a very good case to sue the people that ran his Super PAC for malpractice,” he said, adding the Bush supporters are “uncomfortable” with Cruz, and “very uncomfortable” with Trump.
