An ABC news producer caught former House Speaker Newt Gingrich off guard this week when he noticed the presidential candidate’s “Newt 2012” T-shirts were made in El Salvador.
According to a
CNN report, the producer asked Gingrich to hold up one of the shirts for the cameras because the television station was under the impression they were “Made in the USA” – a Gingrich talking point.
“It was a big thing when we talked to your campaign people about how you wanted things to be made in America,” the producer said during a news conference in Atlanta. “Do you have plans to change things?”
Gingrich responded, “I'll have to ask the folks who ordered this. I don't order it, and I don’t do it.”
Volunteers ordered the T-shirts, campaign spokeswoman Michelle Selesky said.
Several of Gingrich’s top staff members resigned in June, and since then, his campaign —reportedly $1 million in debt — has turned to a volunteer-based model.
“One of the challenges with a volunteer campaign is lots of volunteers do lots of different things,” Gingrich said.
Volunteers do everything from community outreach, to door-to-door campaigning, to ordering T-shirts.
After the news conference, where he also addressed the debt-ceiling negotiations, Gingrich returned to campaign headquarters with boxes of pizza to thank a group of volunteers working the phone bank.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.