Newt’s Inner Circle Live Event | August 31, 2020 | RNC Review

Thank you for being a loyal member of Newt’s Inner Circle. Through the power of modern technology, we are arranging a candid, intimate, live conversation with Newt and members like you. He will be there to answer your questions, talk with you about a range of topics, and tell a few inside stories from his amazing career in Congress and Republican politics. TRANSCRIPT: Newt Live Transcript Woody: Hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. We have Newt on the line now, and please pardon any technical difficulties that we've had. We're trying a new software today. We will be having our next Newt Live event post the first presidential debate, which is scheduled for September 29th So, we're all very excited about that, but I will turn it over to Newt. Newt: Well, thank you, Woody. And I want to thank all of you for being part of the Inner Circle. It's a great help to me, and I hope that you get on a regular basis the specific ideas and concepts that I try to send out five or six times a week. Let me just say that it was an amazing couple of weeks. I thought that the Democratic Convention was not very effective. Biden was considered successful because he actually got through the speech. Newt: I continue to believe Harris is a very weak vice-presidential candidate and I'll be doing both a long newsletter and a podcast about her in the near future. The fact is that Trump had a good convention. I give Ronna McDaniel, the RNC chair, and her entire team and the campaign team and the White House team, a lot of credit. They put together really interesting people, really great human-interest stories, and I thought that on balance that it was a pretty remarkable. Trump's speech was, I thought, very effective. The news media thought it was too flat because they didn't understand what he was trying to accomplish. He was giving you, in front of the White House, the tone of a president, and several people said, Oh, it sounded like it was a State of the Union, so that’s a bad thing. Newt: No, it widened the gap between the stature of the incumbent Commander and Chief and president and the challenger who was hiding in a basement. I also note that Trump has been his usual bounce around the country self. The comparison between his travels and Biden's is just going to get more and more and more embarrassing. The polls are beginning to move in the right direction, and frankly, one of the great challenges the Democrats have is that they have become the party of violent mobs. They are the party of Antifa. They are the party of Black Lives Matter. They are the party that has, I don't know if you saw it, but I watched the mayor of Portland last night and I thought, you know, what a prophetic, wimpish, sad press conference. Newt: I watched for 45 minutes through the question and answer stuff. This is a guy who's had more than 94 straight days of demonstrations and violence, had a Trump supporter killed the night before last and the most he can do is attack President Trump as though it's Trump's fault for his total mismanagement of the city and then kind of whine and whimper and beg people to be nice. Now you would think after, what, like 13 or 14 weeks of this that the mayor would begin to figure out that this is a real problem. I just wrote my newsletter, which will come out on Wednesday, that the Democrats have become the Lion King party in that they really believe that lions and zebras and warthogs get along as good friends. And they don't realize that there are predators in the world and that in fact, lions eat zebras and warthogs. Newt: So, they can't believe overseas that there are predators, which is why their foreign policy is so weak. They can't believe at home that there are predators, which is why they elect district attorneys who refuse to prosecute criminals. They pass laws like New York's “No Bail law” that just dumps people back on the street. They defund the police. And I think all of that's beginning to really, to use the words of Barack Obama’s minister, I think the chickens are coming home to roost but they are frankly chickens of violence, of criminals and of a party which can't come to grips with reality because its left wing is dedicated to that kind of violence. So, this is going to be an amazing campaign. The president, I think did a great job going to Louisiana and going to Texas. I think it was the right thing to do as Commander and Chief. Newt: You know, when people have that big of a crisis, the president first has to be presidential and then be a candidate. I think he's doing the right thing going to Kenosha. And I thought it was kind of amazing that the governor asking him not to come. I can't remember anytime a president has been disinvited by a governor and by the way, a governor who will promptly ask for emergency money and all sorts of other support promotion. So, it's been quite a run, I think hold on because the next few weeks are going to be amazing. And what I'd like to do now is ask Debbie or Woody if we have some questions and some comments so we can have a real dialogue. Debbie: Yes, and thank you everyone. Great questions sent in, and so we're excited to start. So, the first one is from Inner Circle member and your good friend, Paul and his lovely wife from California ask: “What can Washington do about the inevitably planned paid for and calculated progressive increase in demonstrations as the election draws near?” Newt: Well, I think they could do what the president and the attorney general have begun to do. Again, let me draw a clear distinction if you're a peaceful demonstrator, and if you are not trying to assault somebody, you have every right to demonstrate. There are provisions sometimes with where and when, for example, to keep you out of a busy highway at rush hour, but generally speaking, you absolutely have a first amendment, right to demonstrate. What you don't have a right to do is, first of all, what people try to do the other night to Senator Rand Paul and his wife, and that's called assault is in fact, a crime. A battery is if they actually hit you, but assault as if they try to intimidate you. And if somebody assaults you, they can be arrested and they can be tried. And if the person they're assaulting is a federal official, which a U.S. Senator is, then the penalties can be pretty steep. Newt: Second, we need to request as many shots from video cameras and smartphones cell phones, as we can get. We need to identify who these people are, track them down, and arrest and put them in jail. We had that late in the 1960s. We had 2,500 bombings. The bombings ended when the bombers were all in jail, they didn't end because some weak-kneed prophetic mayor went out and begged them to quit bombing. They ended because the FBI arrested him. So, I think we know the lessons of history, we know the importance of strength, and I think the president just has to be prepared to ramp up the forces of law and order to whatever would be necessary to stop the anarchists and the violence. And those who, for example, killed a Trump supporter, that apparently the most recent report is that the person who killed him was in a very proud Antifa member. And that there were people in the crowd who were thrilled, that somebody had been killed. Debbie: A question from your sister, Susan Gingrich, who was the founder of Patriots Reborn. And she says “In January of 2018, when I discussed my ideas for Patriots Reborn with you, you mentioned that we were involved in a nonviolent, cultural civil war. Does it surprise you that it became violent so quickly? And how far do you think it will go?” Newt: Well, my sister has been very active and very thoughtful about government and politics for a long time, so I'm delighted to hear what she said. I always thought it could drift this way, partly because Antifa is a fascist organization dedicated to violence. In fact, you may know that in Kenosha, they picked up three vehicles from out of state, which had stopped at a gas station and they were filling up containers of gasoline. When they arrested the three vehicles, they found inside all sorts of combat gear, and clearly these are people who probably had come in from Seattle for the purpose of adding to the violence in Kenosha, and they've now been arrested. I think what has surprised me the most, and I say this as somebody who spent a lot of time in the nineties with Rudy Giuliani and with Bill Bratton, both of whom I've done recent podcasts with. We know how to stop crime. Newt: We have in New York City, under Mayor Giuliani and Chief Bratton, one of the most successful examples of doing the right thing the right way that we've ever seen. And I'm very surprised at how rapidly all of that has collapsed, that we find ourselves now in a situation where people like Mayor DeBlasio and the mayor of Chicago, the mayor of Seattle, the mayor of Portland, these people are just Looney tunes. And the result is because the world is dangerous, and if you have people who are out of touch with reality, sending signals to predators that predatory behavior will be tolerated., you just get a lot more predators, and that's what's happening. That has surprised me a lot. I'm not too surprised by some random political violence, but I am very surprised by the speed with which the whole system has decayed. I'm also surprised that we haven't reacted faster for the kind of bullying and intimidation and verbal assault, which we see in restaurants and in public. And I think that's going to change very dramatically. I think in the very near future, we're going to start locking these people up because they are enemies of civilization. Debbie: Gregory Harriman asks, “Newt, what do you see as the biggest challenge or threat to Trump in the reelection?” Newt: I think the biggest threat would-be all-out efforts to steal the election. We've done several podcasts, both on the election system that Nancy Pelosi had in her bill, HR 6,800 and also in the effort that we've seen around the country. We did a very good podcast with the head person Bakowski at Heritage, who's a real expert, who can cite 1300 different examples of elections being stolen. So, I think if I were concerned, I'd worry more about that than any other single thing. I think that the gap between Trump and Biden will get bigger and bigger. I think Biden frankly doesn't have the mental ability to go out on the road and you can tell, they can't let him out. They can't let him go and say anything. And I think in the long run, the American people, you know, the hard left and the bitter anti-Trumpers will vote for Biden, but anybody who has any sense at all, is going to say, this guy couldn't possibly be Commander in Chief. Newt: And I just tell audiences, you know, close your eyes and imagine that an American president is negotiating with Secretary General Xi Jinping of the Chinese Communist Dictatorship. Xi Jinping is a very tough man. Do you want an equally tough guy who may be a little bit rough around the edges, or do you want this nice, pleasant, empathetic guy will fall asleep halfway through the meeting? I think if you closed your eyes and imagine Biden in that meeting, you know he couldn't do it. So, I think that there's a pretty fair chance that the normal campaign will be fine, but we will have to worry about the efforts to steal the election. Debbie: Frightening... Andre from Tulsa, Oklahoma asks, “In your opinion, would a hopeful overall loss by the Democrats reduce, or further enhance the division and the chaos in our country. And how can Trump and the nation get this ultimately under control?” Newt: Well, I think that the key is to have an election in which we both reelect the president by a healthy margin and we gain one or two seats in the Senate and Kevin McCarthy becomes speaker. At that point, I think the Democrats will be faced with an agonizing reappraisal of the whole nature of their party and of what's happening. Frankly, I think the bigger, the victory, the better, because if it's really narrow, you're going to see demonstrations in the street and challenges that it's been stolen. So the president needs to win by a decisive enough margin that people clearly understand that the American people have chosen the president and that that argument is over. And I hope, and I actually believe that's what's going to happen. Newt: John G. from Georgia says,” I thoroughly enjoyed your first in a series about President Eisenhower and the American grit and determination to defeat our World War II enemies. Do you think our country could ever rediscover that resolve if faced with another threat of that magnitude?” Newt: Oh, sure. I have enormous faith in the patriotism and the intelligence and the dedication of the average American. I'm always reminded that the Oxford Union, which is the great student debating society at Oxford University in Great Britain, about 1930 or 31, they had a debate over whether or not they would defend king and country and they voted by about two to one that they would not defend Britain. Well, these were the young men who ended up as pilots in the Battle of Britain because, you know, when they got to the reality they said, “Oh I didn't really mean that I was just a college student.” So, I think if people saw a World War II style threat, we would unify amazingly fast and remember, I mean, Eisenhower was of German descent. It didn't matter. You know, the fact is that you'd had a Japanese American battalion fighting in Italy because to the best of my knowledge, there were virtually no Japanese Americans who were in any way hostile to the United States. They all turned out to be very patriotic despite the fact that we interned them. I think Italian Americans did too, despite Mussolini. So, I think, you know, there's something about America that ultimately brings us together, and I think that with a big enough threat, we would reunify very, very fast Debbie: Keith W. asks, “Given the violent acts perpetrated against innocent people, including police, by the rioters in some of our great cities, and given that local officials cannot or will not protect residents, Doesn't the federal government have an obligation to send troops in to deal with the situations? And is there no precedent for doing so?” Newt: Well, we certainly have an obligation to send in federal law enforcement. We have the FBI, we have the border patrol. We have the ability to use U.S. Marshals. If we had to, we could reinforce them or we could call up the National Guard. There are a couple of fascinating precedents, I've written about this. There's a great book, which my granddaughter, Maggie got me to read on murders in Osage County. Osage County in the early 1920s, the Osage Indians had had rights to oil. They went through a cycle where they were being killed to get their oil rights. And it turned out that the local sheriff was part of it and that they couldn't get anybody to protect them. Newt: So, they ultimately appealed to Washington, and in 1925, there was a brand-new federal agency called the Bureau of Investigation. They added the word federal and the 1930s. It had a brand-new chief in J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI went in. It's a great story because they knew that a bunch of city guys wearing suits, which even then was already the FBI model, would not get anything done. So, they hired as consultants, several old Texas Rangers, who understood how to work rural counties. And within two years, they had broken the gang, a number of people were arrested, charged with murder and it was a major, major breakthrough, one of the things which made the FBI. In 1930, the U.S. government decided that Al Capone had so corrupted the Chicago city government and the Chicago police force, that they sent in a team with Elliot Ness. Newt: The movie, “the Untouchables” was a variation on the story, but, you know, we sent in a team to get this guy because we decided that the local government was totally corrupted and unreliable. In 1964, three young civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi. Their bodies were actually buried in an earthen dam in the woods. The local sheriff wouldn't help. The state police wouldn't help. Mississippi was still so deeply segregationist that you couldn't get local support of any kind. And the Federal Bureau of Investigation was sent in, and they went in and ultimately arrested 23 people, charged them with civil rights violations. You see one of the core responsibilities of government is being alive. And if you have a government which is failing to protect you, so you're not able to be alive, you can hardly talk about whether or not the Bill of Rights applies to you. So, we do have clear precedent that when necessary, United States government, and of course we do this all the time with the mafia, with organized drugs. Those usually involve interstate commerce, but I would suggest that if you're in a place like Chicago, and there are 20 or 30 people killed in a weekend that they've all lost their citizenship. And therefore, the federal government does have a legitimate excuse, but they ought to do it first and primarily using federal law enforcement. Debbie: Marilyn Post from Oregon asks, “Several times, ethics violations have been filed against certain members of the House, but have gone nowhere because they're all voted down. Isn't this like the sheriff being asked to arrest himself? When the ethic committee files against members of the majority party, it will certainly be voted down. How are ethic violations actually handled in the House and how are the members kept honest dealing with it?” Newt: I would say that actually, there are a number of cases where the majority has punished somebody. When I was still the Republican Whip, the Speaker of the House, Jim Wright was investigated by the ethics committee, which has equal numbers. Ultimately, Wright was driven out of Congress for corruption. So, there are cases like that. There was a case recently where a member was found guilty. The system does work, and you frankly have to also worry about the other side of that, which is you don't want to set up a system where people can be smeared and can have charges filed against them that are totally false, and you could drive somebody out of office when they haven’t done anything wrong. So it's a balance thing, but I would have to say on balance, they've done a fairly decent job of policing the House and, when people have certain kinds of violations, they're almost certainly going to be guilty. Debbie: Terence Hill wants to know, “What do you think the Republican's response to the Green New Deal and climate change will be?” Newt: To talk about jobs. I mean, one of the things which is killing Biden in Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio is their opposition to fracking and the oil and gas. It kills them in Kentucky with their opposition to coal. You know, you look at Southern California now where they have rolling brownouts and blackouts, because it turns out that you can't rely very well on a very, very expensive alternative energy. So, I think that there's a real challenge. The Democrats continually adopt policies which drive people away. In fact, the labor unions in Western Pennsylvania are now anti-Democrat because they see them as job fillers. Debbie: Douglas Shanks asked, “Do you expect the AG’s office investigation into the Russian hoax to reveal the results before the election?” Newt: Probably. I think that the U.S. District Attorney in Connecticut's a very serious, very competent man. People in both parties say that he’s clearly absolutely dedicated to doing his job. And of course, they lost several months because of COVID. But I also think there are, you know, when you start talking about criminal situations you want to go slowly. I feel very strongly about this. When you talk about national security, you have one standard. Well, when you start talking about locking up Americans, there has to be a presumption of innocence. You have to gather overwhelming evidence. The prosecutor has to believe there’s a reasonable case that they can win and all that takes time. But my impression is that they are working it and that they're almost certainly going to have some serious reports before the election. Debbie: This is from Jerry Leibow: “The Dems are claiming Trump mismanaged our response to the Coronavirus, and that Biden's history is an indication that he would have done better. How should Trump supporters and Trump effectively call them out on this?” Newt: Well, I'll be doing both the newsletter and a podcast on this, in the very near future. First of all, Biden totally mishandled SARS, you go back and you look at that, and they were just very lucky with Ebola because they were in the process of mishandling it. Fortunately, only one person came to the U.S. with Ebola. Second, they did not repurchase all the material they used for SARS. So, when Trump came in, as he put it, the cupboard was bare. And I think that's a very important thing to remember. Third, I think you have to remember that when Trump originally began reacting strongly, the Democrats, they said he was being hysterical, he’s being xenophobic. Nancy Pelosi went down to Chinatown and made a big point of saying, I'm not worried about China. Newt: There was no evidence that any major Democrat understood how serious this was for at least a month after the president started taking strong steps. Furthermore, the largest number of deaths are in two states, New York and New Jersey, both headed by Democrats, both made enormous mistakes, particularly with senior citizens. I find it outrageous, in a country where politics often is outrage, I find Cuomo, peculiarly outrageous. The depth of his dishonesty, the level of his arrogance, the smugness of his belief, that he can tell blatant lies and because the New York media loves him, he can get away with it. It's just astonishing. I didn't see Biden or anybody else tell Cuomo he was wrong when he put thousands of senior citizens in nursing homes already infected with the virus, killing somewhere between six and 12,000 senior citizens who did not need to die. So, I'd be pretty happy to debate the Democrats on who's been serious and who has been purely hypocritically political about dealing with the pandemic. Debbie: Eric Klaus wants to know “If you can identify three breakthrough congressional candidates that we should spend our money wisely on.” Newt: There are so many really good candidates out there. I would say young Kim is one of my favorites in Orange County. She's a remarkable candidate. She came very close last time. I suspect she will win this time. I would say, well, it's an uphill fight, that Kim Kalcik represents a big part of the future. She has been brilliant in what she has done in Baltimore. If you haven't seen her video, I absolutely strongly recommend that you see it. And I have to say just for sheer courage, that Cawthorn, the young man who lost use of his legs in an auto wreck and then stood up for America the other night, I think he's pretty compelling, he’s very young. He'd be the youngest Congressman of modern times if he wins. I think he deserves some support. Debbie: Bill Baker asks, “What are your thoughts on the recent racial actions on the part of the NBA and MLB opening arenas for voting, wearing BLM jerseys, etc.?” Newt: I think they're suicidal. I mean, first of all, people who happen to be really rich because they happen to be good entertainers and that's what they are. I mean, sports have become an entertainment. I can admire them for extraordinary physical capability. But it's a lot like movie actors, a lot of actors, I really like, I think are nuts about politics, don't know anything about it. I have no particular reason to follow their advice. And I think the danger, when you start doing it, it's one thing, if one or two players do something, you start making it a pattern that says, for me to watch an NBA game, I have to watch Black Lives Matter shirts guarantees I won't watch the game. I don't have any interest in them ruining my entertainment and I'll just go to Netflix. The ABC broadcasts are down 45%, and I think you’re going to see more of that, I think we're just going to say, you know, if you don't want to focus on your sport, I'm not going to focus on your politics. Debbie: Douglas Shanks asks, “Do you have confidence in the Republican party's vigilance in minimizing the voter fraud with the huge amount of mail and mail-in voting that will be happening this election?” Newt: Well, I think they will be very intense about it. I think the Republican National Committee is focused on it. I think the justice department is focused on it, and I think we have to get volunteers to stay on top of it. I think there'll be a couple of states, it's ironic, the states most likely to have massive bulk mail are in fact states that Trump is not going to carry anyway, but the danger there is what it does to the congressional races. So yeah, I think we have to be very vigilant and very aggressive. Debbie: Here's a great question for Mrs. Silkin. They live in California and “See our state being taken over by the Newsom-Pelosi machine. What do you see in the future if Trump is reelected for the state of California?” Newt: Well, I think the state of California has got to decide for itself how many people it wants to lose. I mean, California now has a huge out migration and it's going to continue. San Francisco is collapsing. There's a great sign the other day, to rent a U-Haul to go from Boise to San Francisco cost $92. To go from San Francisco to Boise cost $2,400. And the reason is, all the migration is out of San Francisco, and so they've got to then return the U-Haul because nobody wants to go back to San Francisco. It's a great indicator of the collapse of what was one of our most beautiful and most amazing cities. Debbie: Bill Gardner wants to know, “Do you ever advise president trust Trump on his use of Twitter?” Newt: Yeah, we talk about it sometimes. That's the most I'll say. Debbie: Jerry Leibow,” The riots are clearly being centrally orchestrated, and supported. Why doesn't the DOJ follow the money to its source and prosecute those behind it?” Newt: I suspect they will. I'd be very surprised if they weren't doing it. And again, that's something we're good at. That's the way we went after the mafia. That's the way we today go after terrorism. We have lots of tools to do that, and I suspect we'll presently follow the money. One of the challenges is when we did an interview with a reporter for one of our podcasts who has been the leading reporter on Antifa and he made the point that it's really a very cheap organization. I mean, you can have, as they found out in Kenosha, three vehicles buy some gasoline and cause a huge amount of trouble for not much money. It's not like trying to run the Communist party. Debbie: Edward Torres from California has a question. He says, “He's a conservative supply side professor of economics teaching in California and has 25 years of real-world experience in Silicon Valley. He ask, “Why are college history books so devoid of economic history? He finds that today's college students don't know anything about economic issues like Reagan tax cuts, FDR’s massive tax increases, and the welfare reform. Why are they so lacking?” Newt: Well, I think that the social organization of history as a discipline over the last 50 years has gone more and more towards a very narrow and stupid interpretation of what it means. Historically, when I got my PhD, which was a long time ago, you would routinely want to know all of these different things. Because you'd see, one of the great virtues of history was that it covered everything. It covered music, philosophy, economics, politics, culture, fashion, all of that was history. It's one part of why I love it. Debbie: And one last question, it's kind of fun. It's from Russell, and he has a suggestion. He really enjoys the episode on Dwight Eisenhower. And then there was another one that released on Sunday. He's a big admirer of General George C. Marshall, and he would love to see if you would consider doing a podcast episode about his life. Newt: That's a good one. I probably will. I'm a very big fan of George Catlett Marshall. I think he was the greatest administrative leader of the 20th century. It is astonishing what he did and how well he did it. He was an amazing study in courage and study in discipline. That's a great idea, and I suspect probably wouldn't be until early next year, but I will put George Catlett Marshall on our list of fun things. I should tell people by the way, we're very fortunate. We have Susan Eisenhower, President Eisenhower's granddaughter, who's just written a book on how he made decisions and she is going to do a podcast with us that will run in mid-September about the time when they dedicated the Eisenhower Memorial on the mall. So we're very excited that Susan's agreed to do that. Debbie: All right. If anybody has ideas for other ideas for Immortal episodes, please let us know, because it's a very popular part of the podcast. So thank you, Newt, thank you everyone for attending. Amazing questions came. Newt: Let me just encourage everybody. If you find this useful, tell your friends and folks, you know, around the country that they can join the Inner Circle. We love having these kinds of occasions and we'll keep doing it. Debbie: That's great. Mark your calendars Wednesday, September 30th at 10:00 AM is our next one. It will be right after the first debate. So, you don't want to miss it. It should be a lot of fun. Have a great week, everybody. Thank you.