Newt Gingrich, these days, is a card-carrying Donald Trump superfan. But it wasn’t long ago that he was the political incarnation of the anti-Trump, and the free trade-loving, NAFTA-backing, immigration reform-pushing, former Speaker of the House was singing a different tune on America’s first Twitter handle-in-chief. When Trump charged to the front of the Republican field, however, Gingrich made the hard pivot away from everything he’s believed in and worked for his entire professional life and began sucking up to the then-Republican frontrunner.
Newt is, of course, not the only Republican to swallow his beliefs to further his own self-interest; Mitt Romney is undergoing a full-blown Trump conversion as we speak. Once perhaps Trump’s biggest, highest-wattage detractor—to the point he likely did not even vote for Trump—Mitt, now, really wants to be Secretary of State, so he, like Newt before him, has moonwalked away from his principles and into a four-way competition to become secretary of state.
Seems like just the type of political maneuvering the shapeshifting Gingrich could respect, right? Wrong. Newt took the mic on conservative host Laura Ingram’s radio show Wednesday and had this to say about Romney batting his eyes at his president-elect. “There’s a scene in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere goes up to the salesman on Rodeo Drive and says: ‘We need a little sucking up here,’” Gingrich said. “You have never, ever, in your career seen a wealthy adult who is independent, has been a presidential candidate, suck up at the rate that Mitt Romney is sucking up.”
Hmmm… we might have to get out the tape measure on this. But Newt wasn’t done.
GINGRICH: … I am confidnent that he thinks now that he and Donald Trump are the best of friends, they have so many things in common. That they’re both such wise, brilliant people. And I’m sure last night at an elegant three-star restaurant, he was happy to share his version of populism, which involve a little fois gras, a certain amount of superb cooking, but put that in a populist happy manner.
INGRAHAM: I was trying to figure out what the frog legs on the menu meant.
GINGRICH: The frog legs are very elegant. Callista and I both had fathers who ate frog legs. I did notice that Reince Priebus of Kenosha, Wisconsin decided not to have frog legs. I can’t wait to talk to Reince and find out exactly how a guy of his background worked his way through the menu.
Luckily for them, Mitt speaks French fluently. So he could help them with the menu. He could say: ’Ahh, Mr. President-elect. This would be the perfect meal for you.’
Something like maybe escargot, maybe pheasant. God, I’d love to have been there as a fly on the wall…
Newt Gingrich, not a fan of escargot, among other things.
