Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells Newsmax that a Republican landslide in today’s elections will have lasting effects and make the odds of a Democratic comeback “very very long” in the near future.
He also says President Barack Obama has become “wild and erratic” in recent weeks as the American people “rebel” against his policies.
Gingrich lays out a plan for compelling the president to agree to a repeal of Obamacare — and declares that he is “very seriously” considering a run for the White House in 2012.
Time magazine chose Gingrich as Person of the Year for his role in the 1994 “Republican Revolution” in the House that ended 40 years of Democratic rule.
Story continues below.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Gingrich was asked whether he expects that GOP gains this year will mirror those of 1994.
“I think it’s very likely they will be bigger,” he says, noting a prediction that Republicans will gain 59 seats, compared to 53 in 1994.
“Anything above 55 will be the largest one-party gain since 1932.”
Discussing the difference between the Republicans gaining the 39 House seats they need for a majority and a landslide of 60 or 70 seats, Gingrich tells Newsmax: “First of all, [the results will determine] the size of the margin that Speaker Boehner will have to work with next year and his ability to get things done with Republican votes and a handful of blue dog Democrats, without worrying about the liberals.
“Second, it will be the loss of talent and loss of opportunity for the Democrats. If they lose 20 or 30 seats more than the number for a majority, if they’re up in the 59, 60, 65, 70-seat range, the odds against them coming back in the near future are very very long.
“And that will be compounded because Republican victories among governors and state legislators are actually going to make it even harder, through reapportionment, for the Democrats to regain control.”
When the new Congress takes office in January, Republicans should take immediate steps to make the Bush tax cuts “permanent in this recession,” Gingrich says. “There’s no excuse for any tax increase as long as we have high unemployment.”
The GOP’s goal should be to have a tax bill for Obama either to veto or sign before his the State of the Union address in late January, according to Gingrich.
With Republicans in charge of the House, new Speaker John Boehner should make repeal of Obamacare another top priority, Gingrich says. Asked how they could overcome a likely Obama veto of repeal, he explains: “They ought to do three things.
“First, they ought to hold about two months of hearings so everybody understands how bad this bill is and how dangerous it is.
“Second, they ought to cut off all funding for implementation of the bill, to stop it in its tracks.
“Third, they should pass [a repeal] bill out of the House, which they will be able to do. Then in the Senate they should have a petition drive in every state where a Democratic senator is going to be up for re-election in 2012 — drive them to vote yes.
“Get the bill out of the Senate and then have a nationwide petition drive to the president, and seek to gather 50 million signatures so the president has overwhelming public pressure to sign the repeal of Obamacare. If they do that, I think in fact the president might find himself compelled, sometime by next June, to repeal the Obama healthcare bill.”
In an interview last week on a Spanish-language radio station, Obama referred to political opponents as enemies and urged Latinos to punish them at the polls.
Commenting on the remarks, Gingrich says: “I think the president has become a little wild and erratic in the last two weeks, almost desperate.
“I suspect for somebody who’s always had it easy, who’s always been able to talk his way out of things, watching the country close in on him, watching the American people rebel, watching his allies get defeated, has really gotten him to the point where he says some things that are pretty, I think, unacceptable for an American president.
“No American is an enemy, except somebody who is an active supporter of the Taliban. No American who is a political opponent is an enemy. We’re opponents.
“I think the president made a substantial mistake in using that language.”
Asked whether he will be a candidate for president in 2012, Gingrich responds: “I’ll make a final decision on that in February or March of next year. We’re certainly looking at it very seriously, and we think this is an opportunity to offer the American people a really clear choice between those of us who believe in American exceptionalism and those who believe in a secular, socialist, European model, between those of us who believe in lower taxes, more economic competition, paychecks, and winning the competition with China and India, and those who believe in big government, big bureaucracy and high taxes.
“I think it will be very healthy for America to have a clear choice, and [my wife] Callista and I are looking very closely at whether or not I should be a candidate from that perspective.”
Gingrich brushed aside allegations from Democrats that Republicans are the “party of no,” noting that his organization American Solutions for Winning the Future offers a wide range of solutions to important issues.
“The fact is the Democrats only accept socialist, big-government, high-tax, big-bureaucracy, Washington-centered policies, and anything else they think is not a solution,” he adds.
Gingrich says his organization’s website, AmericanSolutions.com, will offer a webcast starting at 9:30 Eastern on election night.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.