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[applause] >> welcome to the national press club. i am jonathan salant, washington correspondent, past president of the club. columnist george will once said daniel patrick moynihan of new york -- more than -- read more books than most senators read. newt gingrich has read even more books. remember, four times more house members and senators. newt gingrich is here to talk about his latest book "understanding trump". he will speak for 20 minutes. has not previously purchased the book, please do so now and

benefit the national press club journalist institute. turn off or silence your cell phones. i would like to acknowledge members of the headliners team responsible for these events. please stand to be recognized. lisa matthews. gary russo. heather weaver. frank masato. lindy underwood. thank you all. [applause] >> i first met steve 40 years ago when i staked out of town hall meeting he was holding outside atlanta. i asked if mario cuomo if he ever ran for president. he never did run but newt

gingrich did in 2012 and for a while lead opinion polls through public presidential nominations. in the interim this professor of history, a historical figure himself, making a successful effort to end 40 years of democratic control of the house, speaker in 1995. he resigned following the appeasement of president clinton and house seats in the sixth year of the term of the president of an opposition party. speaker gingrich never reached the white house, the candidate he supported did. despite polls until election day, sites -- giving her 70% chance of being the first female president donald trump was the 45th chief executive. a trump advisor and someone

close, and the billionaire businessman. and donald trump is the first chief executive with any previous political experience, came out of the business world. this is, quote, the first book written about the world of donald trump is part of it. thank you for coming. [applause] >> host: since we have both been in washington it used to be the establishment candidate who wins the nomination over the insurgent, bob dole, george w. bush, john mccain, mitt romney. in 2016, donald trump emerged. what changed between 2012 and

2016 when donald trump played a role and won? >> guest: first of all, in 64, goldwater won the nomination against the establishment and in 80 reagan won the nomination and those were the precursors to donald trump, the contract with america was in 94. i feel fortunate in that i worked with reagan is candidate and president when i was in congress. we love the contract with america and trump, the continuity despite the traditional establishment. a couple things, trump is a better candidate. the unique phenomena. at one point he asked for advice on debating, i laughed at him, i won't give you any advice. you have a unique style, you are stunningly effective and if you

tried to learn what i do you would get totally screwed up. be who you are, do what you do and i think he is a better debater than i am. if you measure the audience rather than a principal debate system, site ted cruz. second, romney had an enormous advantage. i beat ronnie in south carolina and they spent $15 million beating me in florida. they knew it was life and death. the new york times story about one of romney's advisers the day after south carolina saying if you don't eviscerate gingrich he is going to be the nominee. i didn't have the resources. trump had enough resources at any time you couldn't knock him out but in addition trump did something i couldn't have done. i look back on it as one of the great actss of genius in american politics comparable to fdr inventing the fireside chat. nobody in the city, this is part of what i wrote, "understanding

trump". donald trump had a primetime television show for 13 years. the top show in the country for four years. because it wasn't on pbs and didn't follow downton abbey nobody understood that. nobody in this city -- a guy who knows television that well is by definition formidable. what trump had learned and he writes about this in the art of the deal pretty decisively, what trump had learned in new york in the 80s was any publicity which printed your name correctly built strength. he was happy. i think he should modify what he is doing in terms of tweets and all that. i told him 10% less trump would be 100% more effective. he figured out early on that if he could engage the media, the

hunger of the 24 hour a day cable news system and the power of facebook and twitter meant he could take the air out of the room. all these other guys are running around raising money in order to buy tv ads to be on television. trump would get up in the morning and tweet, set up his argument with morning joe, he would call morning joe and they would argue for 25 minutes and he would call fox and friends and they would have a love fest for 20 minutes. then he would have breakfast. he has already generated -- all morning the media is covering the argument trump is in the middle of. at 10:00 in the morning he would do a press event to keep the momentum up and 10:00 in the evening he would do an hour on hannity for free. in the course of a normal trumpian day he is at $1 million free media and all his competitors are off the air

trying to raise money and what was happening is the sheer name idea. there is only one bowl in the entire campaign where trump is not ahead for the nomination. he was the front runner the day he announced except for one pole where doctor carson pulled ahead but nobody in the elite media -- still resisting -- nobody in the elite media could say to themselves if he is the front runner every single pole could it be he is the front runner? everybody in the washington elite knew he couldn't be the front runner because that everything they believed in would be crazy and since they couldn't be crazy he had to be crazy and if he was crazy he couldn't be the front runner. even though he was the front runner. this went on. i am in a situation where i'm watching so-called experts who learned nothing. the stuff you get on tv is as stupid and as wrong as the

people who laugh when he announced, left in the primaries, laughed at the convention, the people who laughed in the election, they haven't learned anything because it is a repudiation of their own life. their choice is i can believe in a fantasy which validates me or i can decide the world has changed dramatically and that invalidates me, i picked the fantasy. that is literally where we are right now. interesting to see how it continues for the next three years. gradually trump will figure out an angle to break out of this in a way that will be historic. >> what people haven't learned. >> look at the russian fantasy. what happened election night was the democrats that hillary can't of lost. certainly donald trump can't have won so somebody cheated. vladimir putin cheated. this is all vladimir putin's falls, there must've been collusion. they must have colluded. for the last we 6 months

everybody has been walking around chanting watch for the russian connection, look for the collusion. it turns out even diane feinstein, the ranking democrat on the intelligence committee says there is 0 evidence of collusion. the newest one is but there was obstruction of justice over the collusion. the fantasy that didn't occur is now being replaced by the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. the president of the united states is the chief executive officer, he wants to fire the fbi director, all you do is fire him and a very good test, john f. kennedy had fired j edgar hoover over investigating and wiretapping would people have thought it was obstruction? so there is not really collusion so what is the latest leak from the washington post whose record of running anonymous leaks has been the new york times, an enormous achievement and i give

the post credit that in their energy and enthusiasm they have been more consistently wrong than the times which in the olympics of stupidity is an enormous challenge. the latest thing is mueller who will not be able to get anything on russia or obstruction is now finances. what you are seeing is this is why when i was bigger i opposed renewing the independent counsel act. you bring in a bunch of high-priced lawyers, they give up their regular career, they will look for a scalp, find somebody. the fitzgerald case where comey brought in the godfather to his children, fitzgerald, in order to appoint a special counsel when they knew there was no crime because in fact valerie has already been no longer a protected name in the cia and they knew who had done it,

richard armitage and they still appoint an independent counsel who probably decided his mission was to get dick cheney. the most grotesque example of miscarriage of justice and the danger of power of the government, go back and look at that case. that is why i'm worried about mueller blues not that he is a bad person. he served with great distinction in vietnam. i have no doubt he is a person who is going to do his best but he is surrounding himself with a group of people who will engage in a witchhunt and i encourage everybody to read arthur miller's the crucible which is about witchcraft trials in the 17th century in salem. that is the mentality of the left. the left is engaged in sale of witchcraft process. we know somebody is evil. i wonder who we should burn at the stake. maybe it is you, whoever you are. i have two young ladies, i gave a speech earlier this year at

cornell and they said to me for an entire week after the election if you smiled people yelled at you because it was inappropriate to smile when donald trump had won. >> i know the crucible. my son at johnson high school had a play in that. >> that is the mood of the left. >> let me ask you a press question. you talk about donald trump, you became speaker you also faced an ethics investigation after you took office. during that time in the atlanta general constitution, broken these stories, never called those of us staking you out of those meetings, enemies of the people, the reporting of information at this committee fake news. what is different today? why does donald trump react the way he does?

that is different than you and everybody else. >> there are a couple of differences. let me say this is ancient history, when i got elected, the cover of time and newsweek both covers the week before the election, angry white men. those who wonder the left keeps all these things in a drawer, put them back out, let's use that one again. the week after i was elected i was on the cover of time magazine as scrooge. tiny tim's broken crutch. it wasn't enough i stole the crutch, i broke the crutch. the title of the time magazine cover was how mean will gingerich's america be to the poor. that was followed a week later by newsweek having me on the cover as a dr. seuss figure and the title was the grinch that stole christmas.

this was my entry into press neutrality in the modern era. those two covers didn't hurt me because they sent a signal to the middle class we were for welfare reform, that is cool, he is for welfare reform. the cover disappeared. we get to one of the mistakes in my career. democrats filed 83 charges against me. 82 were dismissed. by the third charge i should have filed a charge against the people who do it because it was a deliberate political abuse of the ethics process and i should have moved. that is a mistake on my part. they knew they were phony and absurd but also knew it was -- this is what trump faces, the new was a constant repetition. somebody files 82 charges against you, one charge, also won in federal court against federal election commission and the irs so when i talk about the deep state i have lived this.

the one charge they got me on was a letter written by the law firm which had a mistake which i should not have signed where i said we -- anything federal, the one thing that got me on. we turned over, this is why i won the white house, be very careful, turned over 1 million pages to an independent counsel hired by the ethics commission who later became assistant attorney general for barack obama. imagine his bias. 1 million pages. sat down to the interview and he could pick anything out of 1 million pages and if i was wrong i could be guilty of perjury or obstruction of justice. try some time to remember 4 years ago at 3:00 in the afternoon, a meeting with 22 people, did you say yes? that is what they are up against.

this is very dangerous and i keep telling everybody at the white house this is not like new york real estate law. this is criminal law. these people in coming after you to put you in prison and you need to be very careful and you need to listen to your lawyers and i say this as much to the president as anybody. this is not a game. >> i'm not a history professor but a group that the speaker set up to recruit -- the team as you look at that, a lot of folks start -- who was elected would help from that. be very successful. >> guest: we were not a bigger party to compete nationally and to grow the system to be competitive. we were midsized college team in the super bowl and 40 years, 16

years to create the majority. we try every two years, we lost 82, 84, 86, 88, 90, 92. wasn't like we magically woke up one thursday, we have been trying every single year when elected in 78. >> working with you for cuts and tax cuts, donald trump had an opportunity to do that as well. repealing the affordable care act, has not taken advantage of that forcing chuck schumer of the senate democrats and nancy pelosi had of house democrats to

negotiate. >> in terms of the affordable care act, any democrat who voted to repeal it hit by a primary and defeated in the primary. i think on infrastructure, substantial number of democratic votes. they were carrying large majorities of both parties in the house and senate, it is not inevitable to be isolated, that they like to work with you, what is the entrance fee?

corporate tax rate that -- $2 trillion in money overseas. i believe they can gradually pick off individual democrats, the infrastructure bill is the best place to start that process. >> it was john mccain who said the scandals engulfing the trump administration, lindsey graham criticize the administration and other republicans, and columnists -- >> i don't know where you fit them into this. they are among the r i of the right, they write precious

columns. george will is a tory, likes an elegant world, likes things to be done in an appropriate way. trump is a buffoon, he talks at a fourth grade level, he's not -- he can't be a serious man. as a historian i start the angle which i figure a guy who wins a successful hostile takeover of the republican party and that is what it was, a hostile takeover, then went to hostile takeover of the national government beating the media and hillary, a buffoon, he may have a style different from george will have style but he's not a buffoon. this is a serious man. i try understanding trump in part to say to people it is worth trying to understand a president on their own terms. the same thing about obama.

or clinton or jimmy carter. you got to say what is it they do right and what is it they understand that we didn't? the people who write "national review" and stuff like that, their nose is out of joint, trump is so wrong. when do you think he will become presidential? he did on january 20th. by definition what the president does is presidential. that was a shocking idea to this person because they had a model of presidential that didn't relate to how donald trump acts. >> one last question before we go to the audience, opinion polls at record lows.

if you were advising you do advise them, what would you suggest? what should he do to bring up those numbers? >> communicate directly with the american people. not waste his time weight -- fighting junk like the russian stuff, focus on communicating about jobs where he has a pretty good job already, focusing on communicating about infrastructure, tax cuts to create tax cuts, there are positive things, spend a full week on the veterans administration, so many things, has to more reform legislation, benefit covered by the elite media. to maniacally focus, they did a veterans rally every day for

five days in different parts of the country talking about great achievements in reform and must be doing something right. you have to understand what his base is, 39 to 41. his base is 39 to 41. can you add ten points, mayor bloomberg said he expected to get reelected, say in front of liberal audiences during trump's second term. you see people quivering. their mind can't adjust to that concept. >> host: please identify your self. the microphone will come over to the front row. >> retired navy captain, we met

in the first gulf war. my question is about the paris climate agreement. could you comment on that? mayor bloomberg, the mayor of dc, saying we will adhere to it regardless what the white house does. how will that play out? >> guest: being mayor is a symbolic behavior of the left, you have to be for thing to worry city, how can just as a side note how can rahm emanuel, the mayor of chicago, 4000 people shot last year, be a sanctuary city so they don't turn criminal aliens over the federal government to the court. how can he believe putting a criminal alien back on the street is a good idea in a city with 4000 people shot but the same thing. they make great postures, we are going to enforce the paris accord. what does that mean? by only electric cars you they only by electricity from solar power and wind power, the electricity comes from call,

they didn't do a lot to help with carbon. public relations nonsense. i urge everybody concerned about this to actually read trump's speech. it is a brilliant economic speech. i was doing an event within liberal democrat and he said what trump is done is created a zone where china can now take the lead on the environment. i said to him that is great. china promised to start doing something in 2031. this means we will move the chinese up by 14 years blooge-is fabulous. i want to see the chinese take the lead. the truth is the country on the planet which is the largest reduction in carbon of any country in the world as a percentage is the united states. we are moving to the point where we will have the same level of carbon loading we had in the 1970s. i would love the chinese to try to do that because there was no chinese industry, they can't

possibly get to that. if you read -- this is the problem of the modern left which is essentially an emotional symbolic system that uses ranting as a substitute for thought. if you look at the speech it is very detailed, very specific speech about economics and says basically the indians have said give us a couple trillion dollars, we will be glad to do something, why would we give the indians money? explain to me the theoretical model by which i want to tax somebody in atlanta, georgia to ship it to new delhi and i am pro-american. >> you. >> alan labor. you mentioned healthcare, a $3

trillion industry, the affordable care act is costing people 10, 15, $20,000 per person in business and other families per year which i suggest is unaffordable for better healthcare and more moderate cost than what we are paying now. >> two things are probably a radical. this comes from a lot of experience dealing with health issues including reforming medicare which in a presidential year to speaker. i think health, and knowledgeable about health and national security, 10 times more complicated than national security. and unintended consequences, always a mistake to write it in the secret. the fact is sooner or later you have to part of -- publish the bill, people are going to study it. the earlier they study of the

earlier they tell you what doesn't work and you have to make choices. we are trapped into a model. this is a good example where trump has not penetrated. they are trying to write a bill which meets senate reconciliation rules and congressional budget office scoring the. both are stupid. reconciliation will are an artifact of an earlier era and make no sense as a practical matter. the idea that you would redesign the health system and the senate parliamentarian approves it. utterly irrational. the congressional budget office is a disaster. they pretend it is right. and 93 this great editorial, the cbo came in with a bad score on hillarycare and the times said you could project a 20 or 30 a pattern for that large a section of society is absurd. it is. in a truly trump in world you would abolish the cbo, change the senate reconciliation rules

and you would say a practical common sense matter where do we want to get, we want to get maximum personal choice come into everybody having access to care and most people having access to insurance. you have 8000 federal community health centers. why aren't they -- paying for 8000 committee health centers why our expandable compartment of what they are doing. and hundred% insurance which nobody gets. then we contorts ourselves to get to it. look at what maine is done, two things, a high risk pool, there are ways to do that. they are not complicated. given total waste in obamacare, not that hard to do. second thing, what i would do to

reform medicaid is simple. this is what mary mayhew as the commission who did it, run for governor, a really great reformer. maine passed a rule, if you are an able-bodied adult with no children you have to work in order to get medicaid. of the 12,000, 1000 got jobs. you reduce the number of people in medicaid by reducing the number of people who need to feel on medicaid, and increase on the income. the better future, a real job, save the taxpayers a substantial amount of money, if you apply that to new york and california you would be startled how much you would save and move back into pursuing happiness and

working rather than depending government. >> host: we will move there to the other side. >> the concept of the intellectual idiot that you referenced sometimes and how that fits into understanding trump and the context of the elite media but also the bureaucrats and civil service reform. is it possible to get around the bureaucracy and get out -- >> guest: those who have not yet read the book i include the entire article in the book. i wrote this article. the guy who wrote the black swan. one article entitled intellectual yet idiot. if you google into it like -- and a little yet idiot it is 800 words.

it was the most satisfying explanation of what i understood about rotten -- modern government i read anywhere. the essence of it, 40% of modern government is people who are really good at taking tests and writing essays. because they're really good at taking tests they get into elite universities where they study under professors who are really good at taking tests and writing essays. than they do well taking tests and writing as a they graduate and get a job as a supreme court clerk or new york times reporter, the problem is they don't know anything so they can write a brilliant essay on how to change a tire but if you have a flat tire they have to call aaa because they have no idea how to change a real tire.

this is the ultimate derivation of the remarkable book the best and the brightest, it is a great study of leadership decisions in vietnam. early in the book, lyndon johnson comes back from its cabinet meeting under john f. kennedy and goes to see sam and says to rayburn quality, the george bundy, the provost at harvard, mcnamara, brilliant people, you know, i would be a lot more comfortable if there was one texas sheriff in the cabinet. texas sheriff, the brand-new deputy at 4:00 in the morning. they need to be checked on because he wasn't doing his job. in the real world people behave in real ways and what you have in the kennedy cabinet is this

theoretical group who had a series of theoretical worldviews which turned out not to work very well so they assumed rationality on the part of the north vietnamese talking about orchestrating, the north vietnamese, could have been them but would have been horrendous. they have been fighting for years, that is where they are today. there was an opportunity we could profoundly rethink the middle east, i used to tell people, democracy in iraq and

wednesday at a longer. and 67 years, and the korea movement, couldn't run in, shatter everything and run out and think you are going to have a functioning governing democracy. somalia, yemen, libya, syria, iraq, afghanistan, starters, the better part of wisdom, maybe being cautious is a good idea as opposed to we know how to do it, that would be an example. >> over there in the middle, right here. yes, you.

>> the left-wing attacks against republicans. >> i don't think -- first of all individual attacks are individual responsibility. you don't want to get into a collective group if you have an individual who is insane they are insane. the guy who went out with a rifle in my judgment is deranged. you can use the same term to describe a comedian who holds a bleeding head of the president. these are personal psychological problems, and ideological cultural overview. i do think the underlying pattern, all the stuff about bullying on college campuses, who does the bullying? it is the left.

and a harvard study. it is deliberate. no one on cnn feels any shame about it. they will tell you they are covering the news which is an absurdity. there is a group think, very dangerous, very difficult, some of you have experienced this, go to the right newsroom and say you are pro-trump watch the reaction. the right college campus a you are pro-trump. this is why i worry about the justice department among according to fec reports, 97% of the donations went to hillary. 99% of the donations went to hillary. i ask you, what do you think the cultural pattern is? in a room where 97-3 they are donating to hillary? that is why this idea of a deep state is real. these are full-time permanent bureaucrats. and the pentagon it used to be for political appointees they

were the summer help. they will be gone presently, just relax. >> front row, you. >> microphone is coming. bring it as fast as you can. >> congressional correspondent for hispanic outlook. hillary told ramos during a campaign event that she would never deport an immigrant, illegal immigrant child or his family. i didn't believe her, campaign rhetoric but how much should this campaign rhetoric be translated into real policy when they become president? >> you are better off as a candidate to campaign against great strength and they were great strength in 1994, say what you mean and do it.

in that sense it is not rhetoric, rhetoric should be about reality. you keep your word and that is why we were the first reelected house republican majority since 1928 and it was in part because we kept our word. the only group that balance the federal budget, for four straight years. johnson did it once by $100 million, not that it was a gimmick. i think that it's take -- very happy this morning that the department of homeland security said that they are not going to deport any of the dreamers. people who are going to stay in the us which i think is permanent. on the other hand the courts

that obama's effort to extend to their families was illegal. secretary kelly said i will enforce the course order, the president did not have the authority to extend it from 6000 dreamers to 6 million people. i thought that was an almost solomon like decision. he thought the dreamers should not be deported, you become 3 years of age, you don't speak spanish in your identity is american, goofy to say good luck in guatemala. at the same time you are potentially breaking up families. that is one of the sad parts of how you go through historic change. all campaigns communicate symbolically. i think you ought to communicate what you intend to do and you intend to do it.

that is not the norm in american politics. obama promised you could keep your doctor and your insurance policy, he knew it was a lie when he said it. trump exaggerates routinely, it is part of his salesmanship. you want to come to my golf course, it is the greatest, unbelievable, can't imagine how great the hotel is, it is the greatest. he became a billionaire by selling. you don't sell your hotel, kind of mediocre, you can avoid it and go somewhere else. that brings the baggage, time overpromises. what i wrote about is helpful as a pattern. trump always wants to negotiate down, not negotiate up. always set the initial term, mexico will pay for it. okay? the congress cut the deal with

democrats with continuing resolution and they cancel a concrete wall. the following day after the democrats claimed how clever they were they released a picture of the steel wall. you negotiate with trump you got to read the fine print. he has done more contracts than all of congress combined and knows how to negotiate. >> good morning, mister speaker. i'm a software engineer in the federal agency. my question is along the line of whistleblowers. when you are working in the agency your light years away from the white house, help me understand from your perspective a framework upon which, how to work with this administration

given the animosity toward leakers, cybersecurity issues floating around publicly. iraq -- represent federal software engineers and data science for 350. i am really curious. to ask a question, i could not help but get your opinion. >> great question on two levels. i hope your organization might come forward and offer specific advice for dealing with fibersecurity issues, this goes back -- you know something about it, better than most guys in think tanks who know about this, you actually know the topic. if your group said here is six or eight things that will be helpful. that is a step in the right direction. the second, i would hope, you try to implement the laws of the united states as related to your job and focus on not worrying

about most of the noise and i don't know if this affect you but it affect a lot of federal employees, you have to rethink the current civil service walls which operate in such a way if you are incompetent you keep your job. people who love their job and want to come in early, and it really excited, get drawn down, a small agency, probably a liberal democrat, she said in her small agency she has one person who fits we 10 years has come input his head on the disk and slept for the entire day, she has taken pictures of him sleeping and has one person who has never come in. she cannot get the hr department to fire the two people. that is just crazy and that lowers the morale of everyone else in the department, that is a different zone. my advice is obey the law, do

your best to serve america and it is a great privilege to serve america. i understand if you don't have people who care about the country and work their hearts out it is not going to work. i'm glad you are here today and if you do come up with six or eight serious steps and give them to me i will put them in the white house. >> anybody over there? >> dave martin biomedical engineer and resident. in your opinion, one or more ways an average person like myself can spend time, energy and resources which are limited to affect the change we are talking about. >> as a private citizen, individual speaking up with your friends, calling in to talk

radio, the editors of the editorial writers go crazy, a blog, a tweet, to reach out, we live in an era where you can become your own communication system and you can find other people who agree with you and create a community. this is an era where frankly if trump -- it is decentralization away from washington. we want to find ways for everybody at every level to go out and be creative and be positive and do things. the idea may flow back up to washington rather than flowing down from washington. >> right there. they will move across to the other side by the time we are

done. >> what are your thoughts on the election next week in georgia 6 and republican prospects for holding the house in 2018? >> i think it is even money who wins in georgia. he has $23 million, a single house race is astonishing. i would like 10% personally. that is all that is keeping him up now. he is actually decaying. money is keeping him in the game. in early voting, republican voters up 16%, democrat voters down 23. the gas, purely a guess, the democratic side the college students have gone home, they have a real problem finding some and getting to vote. i am told by people in georgia they are seeing a significant

shift towards handle. if that happens, if she loses we will be battered and irritated and a little frightened. if he loses after $23 million this will be the third loss in a row after kansas and montana. the left will go crazy. they have so much more at stake in georgia that it is unbelievable. i would say as of right now it is worse than even money chance, anyone who knows for sure, it is a function of turn out the last week. it is pretty simple, two things. democrats keep getting crazier. if you are identified as a party of bleeding heads, assassinations in new york public theater, national chairman uses curse words because he can't say anything intelligent, us senator who uses

curse words at some point that party has a relatively small base because they sound nuts. that is under thatcher, thatcher is more like trump than reagan because reagan never threatened the left to me defeated communism in moscow, didn't try to defeated at stanford. the difference is like thatcher trump is a portal threat to the left so the left under thatcher went crazy and by her 30 election in 87 the news meeting referred to them as the loony left so the first question the next year democrats keep drifting into this insanity representing a worldview that is 25% of the country. the republicans get their act together and not just get things done but communicate? they have done so much on veterans administration reform,

such a weak communication system nobody realizes this is the best pro veteran house, and president, the best team we have had in modern times, doing real things, really working and they can't communicate any of them. they have to learn to do things and break past the elite media and make sure every american hears them despite all the hostility. if they saw that and if the left keeps going crazy we could have an election next year where we ground -- gain ground, not lose ground. >> somebody all the way in the back. all the way in the back, right there, go ahead. >> you are a true intellectual giant, widely respected from the point of view that you have but to play devils advocate isn't it possible that trump becomes like mccarthy who became known as a

demagogue and imploded and it took a few years but got there. to give it the framework, the mueller investigation, you don't think we'll find anything in terms of russian money that supported trump against bankruptcies when no us banks would or paying triple the funding, the value for his properties, flynn, manafor it, you don't think will be indicted and the senate voted 98-numtwo for russian sanctions because of what happened in the election. i know it is something that can be smiled at but there's a lot of seriousness and evidence, do you agree there is no evidence whatsoever going anywhere? thank you for the advertisement for the event at the press club, for the question. >> i love somebody asking that.

do you need more criminals on the street and chicago. i will go out on a limb. a remarkable book by diana west called american betrayal which i recommend to everybody which basically says there really were communist spies. mccarthyism is one of the great victories of the left because the left had to smear mccarthy and mccarthy was a wild man and mccarthy at times was a demagogue about the underlying truth is there were at least 500 soviet spies in the united states. people in the left today will tell you that in fact alter his is not a communist by. we know after the soviet empire fell for a brief period we had access to their records many of which are at hoover and we know

about 2:00 in the morning out or hiss met with stalin and was given the highest civilian award in the soviet union for having been such a brilliant agent of influence. this is not theoretical. there are professors around this country who will passionately teach what richard nixon did was terrible and part of mccarthyism and a lot of people in hollywood are communists. the reason reagan becomes so anti-communist is he is the president of the screen actors guild and he has a drink one night with a guy who says to him i am a real stalinist and if we when i am putting you in jail. reagan goes home and thinks this guy is sincere and he becomes a very hard line anti-communist and the empire disappears 44

years later. the framing of your question is interesting. 2. we should look at russian influence. why did the bank pay bill clinton $500,000? why did the bank hire john podesta's brother to be a lobbyist? why did the people who wanted uranium give millions of dollars to the clinton foundation through a canadian foundation which donates do it? i am very happy, let's have a broad -- what drives me crazy, a sign of republican incompetence, we should look at russian influence efforts and russian propaganda efforts but let's start with the clintons. why is it we are really worried about paul mana before, we are not worried about these other people, because he isn't

important? what is the difference between john podesta's brother and paul manafor it? why aren't we worried about half $1 million to bill clinton which was paid at the same point is those making decisions about uranium? why does that not matter. .. so, i'm very happy to look at russian influence in the out. thought they tooth be bipartisan -- ought to be bipartisan, open, and know the

total amount of money poured to into clintons and the podestas. i'd like to know how many countries like saudi arabia give money to universities to hire professors who end up being prop -- prop a pa began daist for the company countries giving the moneyment i'm very concern about the ability of foreign governments to corrupt the american system and very helpful to have a deep, fundamental look at how much foreign money now penetrate our cultural at every level. >> we have one out of time. thank to thank speaker gingrich again for appearing. >> thank you. [applause] >> and before you go, i know you will be off to holy see as you wife becomes ambassador to at the vatan and you're still on american television, have to get up early sometimes so for

coffee, and be perky on cnn or "morning show" give you the official national press club coffee mug. >> i would be happen to sign books and i'm delighted to be here. it was great. >> good morning.