Laura: Joining me now is Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and Fox News political analyst. Newt, the verdict handed down, the president did not seem surprised by this. As an historical matter, how significant is this?
Newt: I think potentially very significant, depending on what happens this fall. You have now the most corrupted system going after political leaders in American history. We have never seen anything like this. Trump has grown in stature all through this experience. The number of people who say to me they can’t imagine how he has been able to stand up. He is now a bigger figure than he was when the trial started. It’s one of the things the left doesn’t understand.
Laura: I also think that the corruption is going to change things. By the way, this doesn’t solve any of Biden’s problems. People are going to go to the grocery store and find it’s too expensive. They are going to find they can’t afford a house. Gasoline is going to start back up again. They will find there are illegal immigrants. None of this is going to affect the long run. This happened earlier. Ironically, the website for Donald Trump crashed this afternoon because so many people went to it spontaneously. For Trump, this is deeply enraging. Not only is this a sad day, but also an infuriating day. I think that the amount of energy that’s going to be available for Trump is going to go up very, very dramatically while it’s clear that we have a cognitively impaired, decaying president who can barely figure out what he is doing.
Laura: Well, Newt, I think the left doesn’t quite understand that it’s bitten off more than it can chew here. Because, Trump campaigned from the very beginning as an outsider. And a lot of people said, well, you got into power. You’re part of the now elite GOP establishment, of a sort. So, you can’t really claim to be an outsider anymore. You already were on the inside. But he is the ultimate outsider now, fighting against a corrupt establishment that will even subvert the justice system to cling to power. At the same time, Democrats say Trump will never leave office. If he is elected, he is never going to leave office. What does it look like tonight, Newt, that Biden will never leave office?
Newt: Remember, this is something every American has to remember: a government big enough to take on a billionaire former president and frontrunner this year, a government that will take him on, can destroy the rest of us. This is a vote going back to Trump or the establishment of a dictatorship in which the corrupt tell the rest of us to do what they want or else they will destroy us the way they destroyed Trump. I think this is, in that sense, an extremely important moment. Personally, I believe deeply in the American people. I do not believe the American people want government to control them. I don’t think the American people want Joe Biden to dominate them. And I don’t think they are dumb enough to believe that any of this is fair. So, I think the net advantage will be over the next six weeks: an enormous increase in strength for Trump and a real problem for the left as it begins to realize that there may be nothing it can do to stop him from becoming president.
Laura: Let’s fast-forward to the debates for a moment, Newt, and how today’s news makes them more important and the way Trump comports himself during these debates. Given what’s happened with this news, what would your best advice be, given that we know Biden is going to try to egg Trump on by saying, “you’re a convicted felon.” That’s going to be the Biden attack at this debate. No doubt about it.
Newt: Look, my advice would be, the smaller and pettier Biden gets, the bigger and more historic Trump should get. Trump should go into that debate as the spokesperson for the American people, as a visionary who wants a better future, as a man who delivered a far better path than Joe Biden, and not get involved in mud wrestling with Joe Biden. Now, remember, by the time you get there, you are going to have all of Hunter Biden’s problems out in the open. You will have a lot of other things going on. And frankly, a little bit like Reagan who said “there you go again” in his debate with Carter, I would just ask as often as I could in the debate, “Have you been to a grocery store recently, Joe? Do you have any idea what the American people are suffering?” And I would just go back to that over and over again because that is the strongest single condemnation. We have a project that does a tremendous amount of polling. African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, it doesn’t matter. Everybody in America is hurting financially. Trump ought to say, “I did everything I could to stop it.” I think we are going to get a new coalition. Trump is running ahead now in every one of those groups, stronger now than any Republican since Eisenhower with African-Americans. It’s that big of a difference.
Laura: That’s what has the left…
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