The Drill Down: Newt Gingrich’s Path Back for the GOP

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is characteristically blunt about the midterm election blowout of Republicans nationwide: “First, we have to admit that we failed.” That is a tough admission for a politician and thinker known for his optimistic outlook on America’s future, but “the price of heating oil in Maine is what defeated Sen. Susan Collins,” he tells author and investigative reporter Peter Schweizer on the most recent episode of The Drill Down podcast. Looking towards the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency, Republicans should work from a simple question: “What do the American people need?” Gingrich speaks as one who was on the winning side of a similar tsunami in 1994, when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. They ran then against the then-deeply unpopular President Bill Clinton, armed with a positive reform agenda known as the “Contract With America.” This year, in their successful drive to flip both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Democrats focused on affordability issues, targeting fuel, groceries, and healthcare costs. Now, Gingrich tells Schweizer and co-host Eric Eggers of the Government Accountability Institute, it won’t be sufficient just to oppose Democratic attempts to address those issues in the next Congress. Republicans should instead be readying healthcare reform plans of their own, “one that puts you and your doctor in charge, not the government.” He also agreed with growing sentiment that both Republican-led chambers should spend their last few weeks in the majority by passing as many of their agenda items as possible into a reconciliation bill. This, he says, should include popular measures such as indexing capital gains taxes, which he says would help senior citizens. Gingrich is making his second appearance on The Drill Down. Back in early 2024, he predicted on the show that the four legal cases ginned up against Trump by President Joe Biden’s minions would all collapse because of their own blatantly political nature. This proved largely true. Yet a chastened Gingrich admits now to underestimating the strength of the Democrats’ appeal this year. Despite warning months earlier that the election would hinge on the prices of gasoline, diesel fuel, and heating oil on Labor Day, he now confesses to letting “my heart overrule my head” in downplaying possible Republican losses. The real message from voters to the Republicans, he tells Schweizer and co-host Eric Eggers, was blunt: “People said, ‘I just don’t want you.’” That is why the Republican strategy of highlighting the ideological extremism of prominent Democratic Senate candidates such as Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and James Talarico in Texas didn’t work, Gingrich believes. “The voters were simply saying, ‘I don’t care how radical you’re telling me they are. I just know that they’re not you.’” One bit of positive news he drew from the “shellacking” is that the vast sums of money spent by Republican candidates on consultants and splashy ad campaigns apparently didn’t matter in the end. “That is helpful and, I think, good for the country,” Gingrich tells the hosts. “They used all that money to hire high-priced consultants – who didn’t know anything,” Gingrich adds, citing the disastrous ad run by failed Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that attacked his opponent using her own estranged mother. Schweizer asks the former Speaker how he was able to work with Democratic President Bill Clinton to achieve four balanced budgets and welfare reform during Clinton’s years. It was, he says, through their shared desire to compromise and trust each other. “We did it in about 35 days of constant communication,” he recalls. “I thought of it as a box where the four sides were ‘What I must have.’ ‘What I can’t have.’ ‘What he must have.’ And What he can’t have.’ And we worked that way,” Gingrich tells Schweizer and Eggers. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), likely the new House Speaker, made news Tuesday when he said he would not even speak to Trump’s new chief-of-staff, Steven Miller. Gingrich isn’t bothered by that. “There were times when I wouldn’t speak to Clinton’s staff either, but I always spoke to him.” Trump will have to navigate not just deep policy disagreements but a raft of corruption probes against him and members of his team and family. Eggers introduces a clip of incoming House oversight committee chairman, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), who seemed eager to take the vindictive approach to his job. “Maybe it’s because I’m gay,” a grinning Garcia told an audience last week, “but pettiness is a thing.” Yet Gingrich agrees with Schweizer that there are legitimate grounds for investigations of Trump family involvement with the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund and other examples of possible self-dealing, as well as purely partisan calls for impeachment that he believes will go nowhere. “I still don’t understand why the administration didn’t release all the Jeffrey Epstein files,” Gingrich says. Once the Democrats get those items off their chests, he adds, there may be room for the two sides to accomplish something. “Find a few Democratic bills that you don’t find disgusting, and negotiate from there,” Gingrich advises. For the first time ever, he notes, the sitting president, House Speaker, and Senate leader are all from New York City. “Trump, Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer grew up within a few miles of each other,” Gingrich says. They all understand the New York dealmaker method: “They get loud and yell, and they make a lot of noise. Then they cut a deal.” Congress is made up of two very different institutions, Gingrich tells Schweizer and Eggers. “The House is basically 435 high school class presidents. It’s more of a truck stop. The Senate, however, is a country club.” Ever the optimist, Gingrich’s latest book, the bestselling America’s Golden Age: Trumpism and an Era of Limitless Possibilities is characteristically optimistic about the promise of rapidly developing technologies in all areas that will make Americans’ lives better and lead to new waves of prosperity. “If you are 20 years old today,” he says, “you may live to be 115. That’s not science fiction.” For more from Peter Schweizer, subscribe to The DrillDown podcast.