Former Speaker of the House and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich spoke on the current state of the 2016 presidential race, climate change, the education system and current protests about racism on college campuses – all while sharing with us his very best Trump impression.
As the NU College Republicans Fall Speaker, Gingrich spoke on Monday evening to a crowd of over 350, which the group’s president Harrison Flagler said made it their most highly attended event to date. Their fall speaker last year, Rick Santorum, brought in about 300 students.
Gingrich made the students wait a bit for the fun stuff, starting his speech by discussing his view that humans are “at the edge of the most extraordinary explosion of human capability in modern times, potentially in the history of the human race.” However, he said he believes that certain “great inhibitions” like hesitancy to break loose from past ideas, struggles of bureaucracy and a lack of understanding of modern dangers all inhibit that progress.
But he didn’t wait too long before talking politics. He railed on the public education system, and said that teacher's unions have far too much power and are “crippling the children.”
“I always tell people, if we had the current system in 1840, the Stagecoach Association would’ve hired a lobbyist to pass a law to argue that railroads could not go faster than a horse, because it would be unfair competition,” Gingrich said.
#ReadyForGingrich
After poking fun at the mass media’s attempts to predict who the Grand Old Party will end up nominating, he shared his own personal hunch about why he thinks Trump and Carson currently lead the polls, arguing that the Republicans voters are yearning for change.
“At that magic moment of them wanting someone different, who dances across the stage? The star of The Apprentice, the impresario of Miss Universe, the inventor of the Trump Tie,” Gingrich said.
He was careful to clarify that his tie was not a Trump Tie, though he owns two, apparently gifts from the Donald himself. Gingrich said Trump told him the reason they’re “the most successful ties in America” is that they’re huge, in the most literal of senses – they’re two inches longer than the average tie.
Gingrich understands the success of the brand – both the ties, and the man himself. He said that those who dismiss Trump as a “nincompoop” ignore that he has been incredibly strategic over the course of his long career as a public figure.
“It’s a real nightmare if you’re a normal candidate, because you’re playing two different games,” Gingrich said. “Trump is playing pro football where the speed and power of the impact matters, these other guys are over here playing croquet, and they’re doing it really well, because it’s everything they’ve learned from their advisers over thirty years. But this is not the year for croquet.”
#FromNUToMizzou
NBN asked Gingrich whether politicians should address the recent protests at Northwestern, Missouri and Yale regarding resources for black students and institutionalized racism at universities. His initial response dealt with the idea of reverse racism.
“I think any time a group decides to exclude people based on race, that’s a racist group,” Gingrich said. “If you’ll notice, on several college campuses, the black students have said to non-blacks 'You can’t be part of this,' and that’s racism. You have to have the guts to say that’s racism."
He then adressed the idea of the Black Lives Matter movement, saying that "all lives matter, all American lives matter, every life matters," and that he was "not going to say one group of lives matters more than others."
Gingrich went on to compare current African American activism to Jim Crow Laws and segregation of the past.
"Somebody ought to have the guts to get up and say we have spent the last 60 years trying to get rid of segregation, and we’re not going to re-segregate because a new group has decided they like segregation," Gingrich said. "We’re not going to be bullied because a handful of people decide they can be important without having earned it. I think that we have to have an honest, open dialogue, but that means both sides get to talk, not just one. Of course, on a number of campuses, I would’ve been shouted down by now.”
In response to a follow-up, he discussed Ben Carson as both an example of African American success and a reason why Gingrich is not a fan of the protests.
"[Carson] is the personification of working hard, getting ahead, becoming an international figure and being a role model that if you try, you can rise in America," Gingrich said. "I would say to a lot of the people currently are wasting their time and energy having a good time demonstrating, they would do a lot better ending racism by studying hard, working hard and getting wealthy, and then they can endow any kind of school they want to.”
Other student questions touched on education policy, America's relations with China and John Boehner. In response to one question from a student asking whether Gingrich thought the United States had a moral obligation to confront climate change, Gingrich bluntly said he did “not agree with that at all.”
Citing a trip to the Field Museum, where he was “looking at dinosaurs from Antarctica,” Gingrich said that the earth’s temperature changes constantly, and that desire for climate change action is misguided.
“I think there’s this arrogant, hubristic assumption that humans are the primary driver of planet and therefore we should in some guilt-ridden way keep the poor very poor by raising the cost of energy so that a billion people stay without electricity,” Gingrich said. “I think [this] is utterly irrational because it fits the elites and makes them feel good. They get to feel guilty and pour the cost on someone else.”
Your move, College Dems
The recent College Democrats panel of Obama aides said the Republican Party’s greatest weakness was a demographic one, and that young people and minorities are increasing as a percentage of the population – and they tend to vote blue.
When asked by a student about his thoughts on that concern, Gingrich was prepared, citing Gov. John Kasich’s success with the black community in Ohio, and a series of Hispanic governors across the country. He also said that “Asians are not likely in the long run to be Democrats because they’re hard-working, well-educated [and] earn a good income.”
In his speech, Gingrich joked about how the 2016 race is actually shaping up to be far less diverse for the Democrats.
“If I had told you ten years ago that we’re going to have a debate between two Latinos, two candidates that are 44 years old, a woman executive of a Multinational Corporation, you’d have all said, ‘What time is the Democratic debate?’”
When asked about his recent controversial tweet about gun control after the Paris terrorist attacks, Gingrich said that a rule allowing retired and active duty policemen and military personnel to carry a concealed weapon could have hypothetically stopped the attacks.
Imagine a theater with 10 or 15 citizens with concealed carry permits. We live in an age when evil men have to be killed by good people
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) November 13 2015Former College Republicans president and Weinberg senior Domonic Burke said he thought the event was very successful, and appreciated the fact that so many students, even from across the political aisle, came to see Gingrich speak. He also attended dinner with the speaker before the event, and said he was surprised about all of the humor that came out in the event.
“Trump impressions? I never would’ve seen it coming,” Burke said.