Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Monday downplayed the war of words he and Donald Trump are having about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the Indiana-born judge who is overseeing the lawsuit against his namesake university, saying that he still admires the presumptive GOP nominee.
"He and I just have a plain out disagreement on this," Gingrich told the
Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo. "I admire him a lot, I think what he's done is historic. I think he has a very real chance of becoming president. But this one I happen to disagree with him on, but I don't think that's a game changer in the sense that overall he is so much better than Hillary Clinton."
Over the weekend, Gingrich told
"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace he believes Trump's comments saying Curiel, who is of Mexican heritage, was treating him unfairly in the case was "one of the worst mistakes Trump has made, and I think it's inexcusable."
Trump, firing back on Monday, said it was "inappropriate" for the powerful lawmaker to criticize his comments.
Meanwhile, Gingrich told Bartiromo that the biggest political news of last week should be the May jobs report that shows just one new job is being created for every 8,000 Americans. The report, Gingrich said, is the "worst report in five years," and that combined with the economy will be what damages Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's campaign.
"That underlying weakness in the American economy is going to be an anchor that Hillary can't carry very far if it continues to be as bad as this last month," said Gingrich.
The economy, he said, could also hurt Clinton if she plans to use her time in office as essentially a third term for the Obama administration's policies.
"The American people want change," said Gingrich. "But what are we getting? We're getting [President] Barack Obama campaigning to promise us that Hillary Clinton will be more like the last eight years. That is the worst possible message in the middle of this kind of economy and this kind of a national mood."
But Trump, said Gingrich, "has an opportunity to dramatically reset the American economy. I think that would be the number one goal. Obviously he's got to build the wall with Mexico, he's promised it so much that that has to be a priority, but the real priority of a Trump administration has to be to rebuild the American economy, create jobs, give us the economic strength to be a world leader."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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