[applause] good morning and welcome to the National Press club. I am from the new Jersey Advance Media and star ledger and past president of the club. Columnist george will once said the late senator Daniel Patrick of new york wrote most more books than most senators have read. Newt gingrich has written more books than senators have read and now there are four more house members. We will speak for 20 minutes and then questions from the audience before signing the book. If you have not purchased the book, please, do so now. Proceeds benefit the journalism institute, the clubs nonprofit that does training and helps the club on freedom of press issues. Before beginning, please turn off or silence your cell phones. I would like to acknowledge the members of the head line team responsible for organizing the event. If you are in the audience stand to be recognized. Mr. Martin, mr. Matthew, larry ruso, heather, bill pierce, bill lawsuit check, frank and staff liason, lindsey underwood. Thank you all. [applause] i first met Newt Gingrich 40 years ago at a town hall meeting he was holding outside of atlanta and asked whether Governor Andrew Cuomo would win in the south but he never ran. Newt gingrich did run in 2012 and i got to spend a week with you in florida while running. In the interim, he became a historical figure leading 40 year effort to end democratic control in the house and became the speaker in 1995. He resigned following the impeachment of clinton. While speaker gingrich reached the polls, he came close but trump wound up as the nations 45th chief executive. From the top trump advisor and someone still close to the white house, speaker Newt Gingrich is in a unique position to talk about what makes this unformer business man to tweak. He is the first person to never ran for office before and came out of the business world. This is quote the first book written about the world of President Trump by someone who is actually a part of it end quote. Speaker gingrich, thank you for coming. [applause] since you have both been in washington, it is usually the establishment candidate who wins the republican nomination. George w walker bush, george w. Bush and mitt romney over you in 2012. But in 2016 donald trump got it. What changed between 2012 when you were the insurgeant and in 2016 when trump was and won . In 64 gold water won and in 80 reagan won against the establishment. Those were the precursors to trump as i think the contract with america was in 94. I felt a little bit fortunate in that i worked with reagan both his candidate and president while in congress. We had the contract with america and now you have trump so i think the three have a conti continuity. Trump is a better candidate than i am. You have to start with that. He is a unique phenomenon. He called and asked me for advice on debating and i laughed at him. I said you have a unique style, are stunningly effective and if you try to do what i do you would be screwed up. I think he is a better debater than i am if you measure the audience rather than a princeton debate system. This is about competing in florida there is enough resourc resources. One of the great acts of genius in american politics is this showcase. This is part of why i wrote trump in the city. Donald trump has a prime Time Television show. There was a top show in the country for four years. And nobody in the city was friday this. What trump learned was that any publicity with your name spelled correctly builds strength. He was happy, and this is part of it, and i think he should modify what he is doing in terms of the tweets and all that, i told him that i think 10 less trump would be 100 more effective. But he had figured out early on that if he could get face of the 24 hour news system and the power of facebook and twitter could allow him to take the system. Trump got up in the morning, he would tweet and that would setup the argument morning joe and he would call into the the morning joe and they would argue for 20 minutes and then call into fox and friends and they would have a love fest for 20 minutes and then he would have breakfast. All morning the media is covering the argument trump is in the middle of. About 10 00 he would do a press event and then an hour in the even on hannity for free. Meanwhile, all the competitors are off the air trying to raise money to get on the air. What was happening is just the sheer name id. There is only one poll in the entire campaign where trump is not ahead for the nomination. He was the front runner from the day he announced except one poll where dr. Carson pulled ahead. Nobody in the lead media could say to themselves if he is the frontrunner of every poll, could he be the frontrunner . Since they dont we crazy, he had to be crazy. If he was crazy, he couldnt be the frontrunner. This went on and so they have learned nothing. The stuff you get on tv is as stupid and as wrong as the people who laugh when he announced, the people who laughed in the primary, the people who laughed at the general election. They havent learned anything because it is reputation of their own life. Their choice is i can believe in a fantasy that validates me or a world that invalidates me and i pick the fantasy which is where we are. It will be interesting to see how the dance continues because i think trump will figure out on angle to broke out of this in a way that is historic. It is happening. People havent learned you are saying. Look at the whole russian fantasy. What happened Election Night the democrats said hillary cant have lost. And certainly donald trump cant have won. So somebody cheated. This is all putins fault, you realize . And that means they must have culawsuc collud colluded. Everyone is chanting watch for the russian connectioconnection. Even Diane Feinstein says there is zero evidence of collusion. But the newest is obstruction of justice over the collusion. So the fantasy that didnt occur is now being replaced by the president of the United States cant obstruct justice. If he wants to fire the fbi director all he has to do is fire him. And somebody said if john f. Kennedy had fired Jay Edgar Hoover over investigating and wire tapping Martin Luther king, jr people would have thought it was obstruction. It is not collusion. So what is the latest leak of the Washington Post whose record of running anonymous leaks has beaten the New York Times. I give the post credit in their energy they have been more consistently wrong than the times which is in the olympics of stupidity. So muller who is not getting anything on russia is now looking at finance. This is why i opposed the independent council act. You bring in a bunch of high price lawyers who give up their regular career and they are going to look for a scout. The fitzgerald case where comey brought in the god father to his children fitzgerald, in order to appoint him as special council when they knew there was no crime because valerie was no longer a protected name at the cia and they knew who leaked it and they still appointed independent council who decided its mission was to get dick cheney. It is the most grotesque mischaracterization and danger of the government. That is why i am worried about muller. He is a patriot and not a bad person. He served with great distinction in vietnam. He is surrounding himself with a collective group of people who are going to engage in a witch hunt and i encourage everybody to read author millers the crucible and understand that is the mentality of the left. The left is engaged in the salem witchcraft process of we know somebody is evil, somebody is bad, i wonder who we should burn at the stake. Maybe it is you. I had two young ladies, i gave a speech at cornell and two women from the College Republicans said if you smiled people yelled at you because it was inappropriate to smile after trump won. I know the crucible play. A friend got to play in that. I think that is the mood of the left right now. Let me ask you a press question. You talked about the investigation about President Trump when you became speaker you also faced a series of drifts and ethics investigation right after you took office. During all of that time, you never threatened gene coming to the Atlanta Journal constitution. You never called those of us would stake you out and call you enemies of the people. You never called to report the information and come committee. A couple differences. First of all, let me say for all of you because this is ancient history, when i got elected, time and news week both covers the week before the election was angry white men. The left keeps all these things in a drawer and pull them back o out and say lets use that again. The week after being elected i was on the cover of time as scruge holding the broken clutch and the title was how mean will gingrichs america be to the poor . That was followed a week later with news week having me on the coverage with the title the grinch who stole christmas. In fact, those two covers didnt hurt me at all because they sent a signal to the middle class about welfare reform and the middle class thought that was really cool. Now we get to one of the mistakes of my career. Democrats filled 83 charges against me and 82 were dismissed. By the third charge, i should have filled a charge against the people who were doing it because it was a deliberate political abuse of the ethics process and i should have moved to expel them. They knew they were phony and absurd and this is what trump faces. They knew it was a constant repetition. Something must be wrong with 83 charges. We won in federal court against the federal Election Commission and won in court against the irs. When i talk about the deep state, i have lived this. Okay . Now, the one charge they got me on is a letter written by the law form which had a mistake. Cleary a mistake. Which i should not have signed where i said go pack never did anything federal and clearly it had. That is the one thing they got me on. This is why i won the white house. We turned over a million pages to an independent council who had been hired by the Ethics Company and later became the assistant attorney general to barack obama. A million pages. Then we sat down to be interviewed and you could pick anything out of the million pages and if i was wrong i could be guilty of perjury or obstructions of justice. You try to remember years later if you said x in a meeting with 400 people. This is very dangerous. This is not like new York Real Estate law. This is criminal law. These people are coming after you to put you in prison and you need to be very careful and you need to listen to your lawyers. I say this as much to the president as anybody. This is not a game. They are recruiting and building a farm team to look at the republican majority. A lot of the folks started off as people who were elected with help of go pack. We are not a big enough party to compete nationally. After 1985, we decided we had to dramatically grow the system in order to be competitive. We were like a midsized college team in the super bowl. It took us 40 years of being in the minority and 16 years to create the majority. We tried every two years for 16. People say 94 was a great year. Yeah, should have seen the other ones. Wasnt like we magically woke up one thursday. We were trying every single year since 1978. When the republicans had the majority in the 90s, bill clinton was working on welfare and tax cuts and you balanced the budget. President trump had an opportunity to do that talking about a one trillion Infrastructure Program and democrats offered to work with him on fixing that yet the president hasnt taking advantage of that and that forced the head of the Senate Democrats and nancy pelosi the head of the House Democrats to sit down and negotiate. You think he missed the opportunity to reach out or it didnt matter . I think with the Affordable Care act it would not have mattered. Any democrat who voted to repeal it it would be defeated in the primary. So i dont think that was really plausibility. I think that on infrastructure they have a real opportunity to work with democrats. I suspect substantial number of democrats to vote. On Veterans Administration reform they have been carrying very large majorities and on medical research. It is not inevitable they would be isolated. When schumer and pelosi say he would like to work with you what is the entrance fee . We dont want Corporate Tax rates at 20 . Well you will not cooperate. We really dont want something bringing back 2 trillion in money tied up overseas. I say it depends on i believe they can gradually pick off vij democrats and i think the infrastructure bill individual is the best place to start that process. You talk in your book and talk about how the left is so out to get trump. For some, it cant. There is nobodys idea of a liberal. Lindsay graham criticized the administration and other republicans. It is not just the left against trump. I dont know if you fit mccain and graham into this but they are clearly among the people who write precious columns and write articles and think deep thoughts. They are george will is one of my favorite examples. He likes an elegant world and things to be done in an appropriate way. Trumps very existence offends him. He thinks trump is a buffoon who talks at a fourth grade level. He cant be a serious man. I am a historian and i start from a totally different angle. A guy who wins a successful hostile takeover the Republican Party and then the National Government beating the media and hillary he aint a buffoon. He may have a style that is different than george will but he aint a buffoon. He is a very serious man. I try to understand trump in part to say to people it is always worth trying to understand a president on their own terms. You have to say ways they do right and what is it they understand that we didnt. I think the literati, the people who write National Review and stuff like that, their nose is out of joint. They are offended. He probably doesnt drink nice enough for them. He doesnt actually drink alcohol. There is so many ways trump is so wrong. A reporter looked at him and said when do you think he will start becoming president ial and i said he did on january 20th because by definition what the president does is president ial. And that was such a shocking idea to this person because they had a model of president ial that didnt relate to how donald trump acts. Let me ask one last question before we open it up to the audience. That is the opinion polls. He is at record lows. Since you do advise him, what do you suggest . What should he do to bring up the numbers . Communeate directly with the american people. Not waste his time and energy fighting over junk like the russian stuff. Focus on communicating about jobs, focus on communicating about infrastructure, focus on communicating about a Better Health future, focus on communicating about tax cuts to create more jobs. There are positive things they are doing. They have to spend a full week on the Veterans Administration. They are already this year done so many things both with the congress, in all fairness, when the Republican House and Senate Passed more reform legislation for veterans this year than every in history. But none of it is going to be covered by the elite media. They need to figure out a strategy as reagan would to focus on if they did a veterans rally for five days talking about the great achievements in reform by the end of the week people will say tay must be doing something right. What we are learning is his base. His base is between 3941. Everything the post and times says this base is 3941. The question is can he add ten points . Mayor bloomberg said they fully expect him to get reelected. I love saying to liberal crowds during his second term. Their mind cant adjust to that. Host lets throw it open to questions. I think we have a microphone coming over. Lets start in the front row right there. Mr. Speaker, retired navy captain, we met in the first gulf war. My question is about the paris climate agreement. Can you comment on that . Mayor bloomberg and mayor of d. C. Are saying they will adhere to it regardless of the white house. How do you think that plays out . I think being mayor is a symbolic behavior of the left. You have to be for a sanctuary city. Just as a side note, how can the mayor of chicago with 4,000 people shot last year want to be a sanctuary city so they dont turn criminal aliens over to the federal government . How can he believe putting a criminal alien back on the street is a good idea in a city with 4,000 people shot . We will enforce the paris accord they say. What does that mean . San francisco is only going to by electric cars and only buying electricity from solar and wind power . If the electricity comes from coal they are not doing much to help with carbon. It is all Public Relations nonsense. I urge everybody concerned about this to read trumps speech. I was doing an event yesterday with a liberal government and he said what trump has done is created his own where china can now take the lead on the environment. And i said to him that is great. China promises to start doing something in 2031. This means we will move the chinese up by 30 years. That is fabulous. Do you think they will start next week . The truth is the country on the planet with the largest reduction of carbon as a percentage is the United States. We are moving to the point where we have the same level of carbon loading than we had in the 1970s. I would love for the chinese to try to do that. There was no chinese industry in the 1970s. This is the whole problem with the modern left which is an emotional, symbolic system that uses ranting as a substitute for thought. If you look at the speech, it is a v