Fox commentator Brit Hume says former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s attempt at retracting his comments on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan made Sunday on “Meet the Press” was “vintage” Gingrich. Hume also said Monday on Fox News’ “Special Report” that Gingrich has handed Democrats a “potent weapon” against Ryan.
“The former speaker’s Sunday comments about the Ryan budget plan as regards healthcare were simply politically inexplicable — he attacked the Ryan plan as you heard as ‘radical’ and is, ‘right wing social engineering.’ That last phrase is about as harsh a criticism as one could level at a fellow Republican,” Hume said. “And never mind that a couple of weeks ago, Gingrich told Time magazine he would have voted for the Ryan plan.
“Now he has not only disparaged a man who’s a hero to many Republicans, he has handed Democrats a potent weapon against Ryan and the Republicans at the very moment they stand accused by Democrats of trying to destroy Medicare,” Hume said. “Today, of course, Gingrich is trying to undo it all, claiming he’s against such a mandate and he’s a great admirer of Paul Ryan and so on.
“Republicans must wonder what he will say next and why he said what he already did,” Hume added. “In fact, though, this is all vintage Gingrich who is what he has always been, a provocative thinker but a promiscuous talker.”
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