Newt Gingrich was a history professor in Georgia in the seventies and he got interested in politics and decided to run and he ended up being a member of the House of Representatives representing his state of Georgia. UM and worked his way up until he was the Speaker of
the House. Then, after forty plus years of Democrats controlling the House of Representative, in some belief that demographically Democrats would control the House forever, Newt put together the Contract with America and was able to lead a Republican revolution. He called it in four for Republicans take take the House back after forty plus years, and he did a battle with Bill Clinton. If you were following politics at
the time, it is very, very exciting time to be alive. Um. Since then, he's continued as an historian, to write a lot of books and stay active in politics. Ran for president and uh did pretty well back there in two thousand twelve. But now he's out with a brand new book called Trump and the American Future, solving the great problems of our time. New Gingrich, Welcome to the Armstrong and Getty Show. Appreciate the time this morning. Well listen, it's great to be with you and they have a
chance to chat. Be very excited by the new book because I think as you go into this particular election, I think having an ability to effects and figures and to be able to talk with your friends and neighbors can be very very important. Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's it's more difficult than ever. So before we get into that, You're you're in a historian. You've been around a long time. You know. I found this kind of interesting. You've been
around the entire time I've been following politics. You're still on younger than Joe Biden, which is which I find astounding. Um. Uh, it is, it's an astounding fact. Um. But you're an historian. Where does the current time we're living in rank I mean, with the pandemic, with the economy, with the racial tensions and everything like that, it seems to me it's about
as crazy as anything we've had in our nation's history. Well, I mean, certainly not be as bad as the Civil War, But I think if you take that off, the equation, Uh, it's it's in the same league with with FDR going through the depression in World War Two. Uh, it's it's the combination of having a pandemic which the Chinese lied about consistently and made it much worse, having the public
health people say closed everything down. So the government for the first time I don't ever remember ever before government's deliberately creating a depression, which is what they did. And then for a people who are used to being very free, telling us all to shut up and stay at home
and do exactly what your local official tells you. And then finally, with with weeks and weeks of of of unhappiness and tention building up, you had the tragedy of George Floyd getting killed and the way he got killed give an eight and a half in a tape of people saying you're killing him and then you watch him dying.
And that led to and you know, that was a spark which I think will be seen as historic and which led to a lot of different activities, some of them totally legitimate and some of them are barbaric and totally illegitimate. So when you swirl all that together and you combine that with a very left wing news media that just hates Trump, um, you really have an interesting As a historian, you have a really interesting time. How
do you feel about this move of journalism. You saw what happened with the New York Times, the revolt they had in their you know, their editorial section there um and they pulled it up, ed from a sitting US senator with a reasonable argument he's making. You mentioned the left wing media, um that understates it. How does that fit in that we don't even have we don't have any common news sources we can go to to even
find out what the stories of the day are. All Right, Well, I think you have to start with the idea these are not news media. These are propaganda systems for the left. They have no relationship to news media. Uh, And I think you really have to start from that perspective. And then I think you've got to decide that you know, you're gonna find ways to learn things on your own, but you do you canna expect them to always be
anti Trump, you know. So, so Trump goes to West Point and gave what I thought was one of the better speeches of his presidency. The young cadets I think paid really careful attention. I think it was a very positive day. And immediately the media starts to focus on whether or not he walked down this long ramp too
carefully and was that a sign of age? Now, if you watch Donald Trump and you watch Joe Biden, the idea that the person you'd worry about being too old as Trump is crazy and Trump has the energy of a thirty year old. But and he made a very clear point. He said, look, there was no handrail. It was a slippery surface, and I was wearing leather shoes, and I knew if I fell that the eight media would go crazy. So yeah, I walked down very carefully. And if you're watching, when he gets to the bottom,
he sort of trots off and he's fine. But they were looking for what is it we can use to clutter this speech because the speech is too good. And if we let the American people see the speech, they might get a positive view of Trump. We're talking with former speak We're talking with former Speaker of the House and a historian and author of many many books. New Gingrich ran for president himself. Um, the book is Trump in the American Future, Solving the Great Problems of our Time.
You have Trump in the title, but it seems to me the problems of our time, you know, are are going to be there. Whether whether Trump is president or not. What do you lay out as the problems of our time. Well, I think, first of all, you've got to get the economy growing again. Nothing else works if we can't get
the economy growing again. The second, I think that you have to continue to learn how to cope with the virus, partly by getting things that are better therapies, partly by getting ultimately some kind of vaccine, and by learning how to focus on hotspots and surround them and stop them before they get before they infect very many people. I think third, we have to have a basic argument about whether or not this country is not a function. I mean, you know, when you when you look at how bad
the schools are and some of our cities. In the Baltimore, which is the fourth most expensive city in the country for education, there are entire buildings that do not have a single student passing the state exam, not one. So they're clearly not schools in any traditional sense. And this is a crisis because it leaves these kids with no usable skills, no ability to survive, they no wonder, they
feel cheated and frustrated, etcetera. So you know, I think, um, it's just it's amazing that we have not been willing to come to grips with some of these things. You know, I think again we need to come to groups with with with a better policing. But that's what I actually believe. That probably means more police paid better and with with with stricter rules, and probably with every one of them
having a body camera. Uh. That requires changing the union contracts, which is the same problem we have with the big city school system. As long as long as you have union contracts which protect the incompetent, you're gonna have systems that decay. You were Speaker of the House, New Gingrich, and um, it was a contentious time, and you and Bill Clinton and the battles and that sort of thing.
But man, it's it seems like everybody loved everybody. To compare to today, when you you know, the President will call Nancy Pelosi crazy and should call him morbidly obese and back and forth. Do you see us ever returning to anything even closer to uh, to cooperation and bipartisanship
anytime soon? Well, when one side wins, and the reason is so intense right now is that both sides see themselves almost winning and almost being annihilated, and that maximizes the pressure and maximizes the emotions that are at stake, and so until that gets solved, until one side clearly is dominant, it's going to remain that that intense and that better. That is fascinating. I'm glad we had you
on just for that question and answer right there. The book is Trump and the American Future, Solving the great problems of our time. Smart guy, lots of perspective and obviously experienced new gring. Thanks for your time today. Thank you enjoyed it. That was interesting. Honestly, that was worth the interview for that, and uh reminded me. I've heard George will say that too. This will stay as as bitter as it is until one side wins, clearly wins. And you know, it doesn't have to be a pcent
to nothing. It probably just needs to get to somewhere sixty forty, maybe seventy thirty. But then you've got a clear you know, leading um uh well side that that's that's leading the way on the other side trying to uh group back together. But when it's this tight and every battle is so close, we're either going to win or be annihilated. That's how you end up with, you know, this, this knife fight that we're in on every single issue, every single day. That's really interesting.