The nation's police officers are "central to what we call civilization" — and any threats against them must be "dealt with very harshly," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells Newsmax TV.
"The police are exactly like the military," Gingrich, 73, who was vetted last week by the Donald Trump campaign as a possible Republican vice presidential running mate, told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth in an exclusive interview from Paris.
His comments followed last Friday's deadly sniper ambush that killed five Dallas police officers and wounded seven others.
The attacker, Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, an Army reservist who spent nearly a year in Afghanistan, was later killed by a robot carrying a remote-controlled bomb that was detonated by police.
Johnson told authorities that he "wanted to kill white people" and "especially white officers" after police fatally shot Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota.
"They are the thin line between us and barbarism, between us and anarchy and riots, between us and rule by the toughest and meanest," Gingrich said.
"The police are really, really central to what we call civilization. That means that any act of violence against the police has to be dealt with very harshly.
"Frankly, I think anybody who advocates violence against the police should be dealt with very harshly," he told Hayworth.
"We have to modify what you're allowed to say: 'Look, if you advocate attacking the people who are protecting society, we're going to put you in jail. We are not going to tolerate this kind of behavior.'"
"We have to find ways to have better training and better approaches with the police to not have the kinds of incidents we had in Baton Rouge and St. Paul," Gingrich later added.
"But we have to absolutely stamp out anybody who would be engaged in violence against the police — because that blue line is the margin of civilization."
See more of Hayworth's exclusive interview with Gingrich on Monday at 8 and 11 p.m. ET only on "Newsmax Prime."
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