Gingrich: Mayors Who Remove Confederate Statues Are 'Pandering'

Mayors in cities with majority-black populations who order the removal of statues that note Confederate history are "pandering" in the wake of the Charlottesville, Va. violence, according to Newt Gingrich.

"Mayors in towns that are largely black are going to pander to their audience. They are going to go out and prove they are popular by doing something that meets their current demagogic needs. But that's everything the founding fathers worried about," the Republican former House speaker said Monday on Fox News' "The Story With Martha MacCallum."

"Having demagoguery define your country is truly dangerous," Gingrich told MacCallum.

"We ought to be a country focusing on the future, not a country frothing at the mouth about the past. And it tells you something about the intellectual collapse of the left," Gingrich said.

Gingrich rebuked Nazism and the Ku Klux Klan, saying, "Any person that tells you they are a neo-Nazi is telling you that they are signing up for evil."

He added that President Donald Trump had spoken out against racism during his inauguration.

However, Gingrich expressed some criticism of Trump over his response to the Charlottesville violence, saying Trump should have responded "more aggressively," Gingrich said Sunday.

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