Newt Gingrich Speaks at the CATS Roundtable Radio Show

Interview Highlights

“I think there’s at least a 30 percent chance he’ll (Trump) be the nominee…He is not a traditional politician. I always tell people in Washington, look, you need to go and read about Andrew Jackson and read about how totally disruptive Jackson was to begin to understand what Donald Trump would be like if he won….I mean, this is a guy who is outside of the regular system, he is totally prepared to be a unique figure, nothing intimidates him, he’s independently wealthy on a great scale, and he achieved a lot in his lifetime.”

Trump is “extraordinary” and “a very talented person…It’s not just that he’s made a lot of money, but that he has run big systems, he has had New York Times best-selling books, he’s had the number-one rated television show in ‘The Apprentice,’ he’s run the ‘Miss Universe’ contest, he’s invented an entire collection of ties, which turned out to do very well, by the way.”

“I remind everybody that at this stage in the 2007, 2008, John McCain was dead. He’d run out of money, he had no future, he had no hope, and boom he turned it all around. And so I’m very respectful of the American people’s right to surprise us. And they could resurrect Jeb Bush, who’s a terrific person as you know, they could give Christie an extra boost, they could reach out and get Kasich, they could conceivably get [Kentucky Sen.] Rand Paul.”

The Republican primary candidates are “the most competent group we’ve had run, certainly in my lifetime.”

About Newt Gingrich

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. After the 1994 mid-term elections, Newt Gingrich became the first Republican Speaker of the House in 40 years. While he was House speaker, the House enacted welfare reform, passed a capital gains tax cut in 1997, and in 1998 passed the first balanced budget since 1969. Since leaving the House, Gingrich has remained active in public policy debates and works as a political consultant and network political analyst. Speaker Gingrich has a new project which is to educate America and especially young people about our first President George Washington. He is married to Callista.