Newt weighs in on the 2020 presidential race as election day draws near with Jesse Watters.
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Transcript
Newt Gingrich
Watters World
October 10, 2020
Jesse Watters:
Speaker of the House and author of Trump and the American Future, Newt Gingrich. Alright, speakers. So how do you see the election Just a few weeks away?
Newt Gingrich:
Well, I just want to say first of all, that was a very good, amazing introduction. Thank you. I commend you. That’s really well done. Oh, I think the election, a couple of weeks Trump wins. I think we’re exactly where we were in 2016. In fact, I just went back and pulled up an interview. I did in mid October with Megyn Kelly in 2016, where she gave me all the standard Washington lines. And I said, yeah, I think you’ll carry Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And she clearly thought I was crazy. So we just gotta, we just gotta poll in today from Trafalgar, which is the most accurate poll in the last two elections. And they now show Trump carrying Arizona by about five points. They show him carrying Ohio. I think a lot of things are moving in the right direction. And I think to the point you started with, you know, there are two ways to look at this.
Back when the, the Chinese virus first showed up, the estimates were, we could lose 2 million, 200,000 Americans. The president of very decisive action. And you could argue he saved 2 million American lives and who was on the other side? Oh, Biden, Pelosi, Harris, Cuomo, Blasio. I mean, all the liberal Democrats thought this was a joke. So you can hear this very Donald Trump’s responsible for 200,000 dead or with equal honesty, you can say Donald Trump’s saved over 2 million Americans who are alive today because he took actions that the Democrats were attacking him for. I think that’s an example. The other thing that’s happening by the way that I think is going to keep growing the first time this campaign, the news media is going after Biden. And it’s because he won’t say whether or not he’s going to pack the Supreme Court. And he has a problem. Two thirds of the country is opposed to it, but the one third, the likes that happens to be his base. And so he’s trying to dance. And for the very first time, I don’t, I don’t know what happened, but for the very first time, the last few days, the news media is actually pushing him to come down and say one way or the other. And I don’t think Biden handles that kind of pressure very well.
Jesse Watters:
He doesn’t, and he can’t straddle that issue very much longer. It looks really awkward when Harris was out there debating Mike Pence and she danced around it. She played the race card. She lied about Honest Abe. To go back up to what you said, I want to talk about what you said at the top. This is kind of reminiscent of 2016.
Newt Gingrich:
Honest Abe in the same as honest Kamala
Jesse Watters:
That, that, that has quite a ring to it. About 2016, you remember this is after the first debate and you know, the polls really didn’t start to close. I thought Trump did well there. Then you have access Hollywood. The Republican establishment starts bailing. You see October polls, he’s down 13 points and things like that. RNC running for the Hills. It’s, it’s very similar the way it’s lining up today, where, you know, he does get sick, which takes them off the campaign trail. You get these suppression polls where they’re oversampling Democrats by double digits and say the Trump’s down in Texas and Georgia and things like that. So that gets independence and, and Senate Republicans a little nervous. And, and you know, you get these reports in the Times like people are starting to bail, but then when you look at the, at the enthusiasm on the Trump side and the registration numbers and the, and the economic numbers, there is a survey out by Gallup that says a majority of Americans, a healthy majority believes they’re better off today than they were four years ago. I mean, this is lining up for again. You have Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Arizona in the Republican camp. And then you just got to pick off one of the four Russ belts and you’re over 270.
Newt Gingrich:
Oh yeah. Here are two 50 to 56 and 55 number 56% of the American people, according to Gallup, think they are better off than they were four years ago. That’s 11 points higher than Obama had in 2012. When he got reelected,
Here, but here’s the second number that I think people are underestimating. 55% of American people think that Joe Biden has cognitive difficulties, 55% please, his cognitive.
Well, how likely is it when they actually get down to voting that they’re going to make a commander in chief of somebody they think probably couldn’t stay awake for the whole meeting with Xi Jinping.
Jesse Watters:
Right? And I believe a majority of voters think that if Biden wins, Kamala Harris is going to be president and she did not come off well in that debate against Mike Pence. Not only did Mike Pence take her apart on policy, but she did herself damage just by the antics, the facial expressions the countenance, just, it was not a mature presentation by Kamala Harris. She wasn’t likable. So I, I think that her, and then you combine that with them not answering basic questions about what they’re going to do to the court. I don’t see this going in a good direction on the issues for them.
Newt Gingrich:
Well, let me say about both sides of that debate. I thought Pence was as good as he’s ever been. I actually hope the president will watch that debate two or three times before his next debate. Look at the discipline. Look at the preparation. I mean, Mike Pence did a great job. On the other side. The only way I can summarize Kamala Harris is that she is more radical than Hillary Clinton. And she’s basically Hillary Clinton without the charm.
Jesse Watters:
Alright, I’m going to leave it at that. Newt Gingrich check out the new book it’s flying off the shelves. Thank you very much for coming on Watters’ World.