Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House who will decide whether he will run for President in the next few months, tells The Brody File that he's not concerned about what his critics might drudge up from the 1990s.
Instead, he actually began to explain why he sees himself as someone who has solutions to the big challenges that will face the country in 2012.
As you read the transcription below and watch what he has to say, you start to see the policy framework he might highlight if and when he runs for president.
Watch the clip of my interview with the former Speaker of the House below. Transcription also provided.
PLEASE VIDEO COURTESY CBN NEWS/THE BRODY FILE. IN ARTICLES, COURTESY: "On CBN's The Brody File Show"
Newt Gingrich will be part of next week's Brody file show. Also on the show: Live in studio with George Allen and Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity.
David Brody: What are some of the checklists in the process for you in these next few months in terms of how you'll come to that decision? What are some of the things that you are looking at as to whether you may get in or may not get in?
Newt Gingrich: Well, first of all, Callista and our daughters and grandchildren and our son-in-laws have to decide that it's something that they'll tolerate. I mean this is a big decision. This is a decision that changes all of our lives, win or lose for a long time.
Second, I think we have to decide that it's our civic duty. I mean, I don't think we'd run just to be a candidate. But if we conclude that this is a rare moment in history where we could draw sharply a distinction between a candidate who believes in American exceptionalism, who believes that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and a candidate who believes in a much more secular, socialist, European model and believes there's no particular American exceptionalism, I think that that will give the country a really big choice. Would be very attractive and would tempt me to want to run.
David Brody: What about your critics in the media who want to have a field day and go back to the 1990s and drum up a lot of stuff that was there at the time. You know the media will try to have a field day with some of that stuff. Does that play into your equation at all?
Newt Gingrich: No. I don't worry about that very much. I think what people are going to worry about is how big are the challenges, who has solutions as big as the challenges, and who do you trust to get things done?
I think when you look for example that we did in fact balance the budget for four straight years, that we controlled spending to 2.9 percent a year, the lowest rate since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, that we were able to pass Welfare Reform and have members of both parties. Half the Democrats voted with us for Welfare Reform so it was a very bi-partisan issue.
I think if voters decide that's the future, then you have a very very different conversation than the normal personal ambitions stuff. My sense is the country is really concerned and that the country feels in a lot of different ways that this is a period of very, very unsettling information, whether it's about jobs or whether it's about terrorists or it's about big government. And so I think you could be about to cover one of the most educational and interesting campaigns in American history.
And I think the Congress ought to approach this next year the same way. This is a country that wants a serious Congress. They don't want politics as usual. They don't want fights as usual.