Newt Gingrich Battles The View on Trump’s ‘Lynching’ Tweet: ‘I’m Going to Be Very Politically Incorrect’
A day after saying the White House press corps ought to be eliminated, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich co-hosted The View, where he and his fellow panelists collided over President Donald Trump’s “lynching” tweet.
Gingrich is currently making the rounds to promote his new book, Trump vs. China: Facing America’s Greatest Threat, and after telling CBS “there wouldn’t be a White House press corps in the White House” if he had his way, he took his media tour to ABC. Sure enough, things started off with a bang when Whoopi Goldberg asked Gingrich to respond to how Trump is likening impeachment – a Constitutional process – to lynching.
“It’s a word that nobody, you know, wants to hear,” Goldberg said. “This was not a good choice of words for him, do you think?”
Gingrich defended Trump by comparing him to Clarance Thomas, who claimed he experienced a “lynching” when he was investigated during his Supreme Court confirmation process. The former speaker continued to excuse Trump by saying he’s “deeply frustrated” by how he has been “beaten up” and investigated since the start of his presidency.
“But doesn’t he bring a lot of that on himself?” Abby Huntsman asked, to which, Gingrich shrugged and said “sure.”
“Listen, Newt,” Golberg interjected as she jumped back in the conversation. “When a giant six-foot white guy says I’m being lynched here, you understand why it’s a little bit like, listen man, you’re not being lynched here, you are being held to the standard we’re supposed to be holding every president to.”
Gingrich continued to be pressed on the subject, with Sunny Hostin noting that his Trump-Thomas comparison is faulty since Thomas is black.
“I’m going to be very politically incorrect,” Gingrich eventually said, pivoting. “Most of the early American movies on lynching were about lynching white people.”
Gingrich eventually acknowledged Goldberg’s point that “it wasn’t” appropriate for Trump to use the term, and “he often uses words more clumsily than he should.
“I’ve been comfortable just calling it a witch hunt and a Kangaroo court and things like that,” he said. “I haven’t gone up to that next level.”
Watch above, via ABC.
