When Donald Trump squares off against Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, he needs to focus less on himself as the issue under discussion and more on the Democratic nominee, "because she is a liar," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said during a wide-ranging discussion with Trump supporter and Fox News host Sean Hannity on Sunday night.
"I think his greatest strategy would be to be respectful and slightly lower key than people expect," Gingrich told Hannity. "So I think, for example, if he says, 'You know, that is simply not true' as opposed to you are a liar."
Trump should be "pulling her out rather than attacking her, and where possible he wants to be making fun of her," Gingrich continued. "Just say, for example, 'The director of the FBI has said he agrees with what you just said. How do you explain that?' I think that would be kind of keeping her on the defensive."
While Gingrich said Trump shouldn't attack Clinton, though, that didn't stop the former House speaker from lambasting her on Hannity's program, especially after the call from Clinton's campaign for vigorous fact-checking during the debate by moderator Lester Holt.
"I have never seen a campaign so publically indicate that they don't have faith in their own candidate," said Gingrich. "They don't think Hillary can stand up to Trump. They don't think she can correct him if she is wrong. They want Lester to be their partner. They are desperate to create a two-on-one situation where Lester and Hillary are on one side and Donald is on the other. I don't think Holt is dumb enough to do it."
The demand, though, "Just tells you that the Clinton people are very anxiety ridden. They watch the polls go down week after week. They are now frankly fighting to survive. This is her first big test, and in the past she hasn't done very well with big tests."
Gingrich and Hannity also laid into Clinton for inviting Trump nemesis Mark Cuban to attend the debate, playing video from 2014 following the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, in which he'd said he'd cross the street if he saw an African-American youth in a hoodie walking."
"I think they should certainly highlight the clear hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton and the media who are so delicate as long as it is a conservative but who can ignore anything if it is a liberal," said Gingrich. "I think people ought to ask Cuban does he really still stand behind what he said or will he concede that it was really wrong and sent the wrong signal?"
Gingrich also lambasted Clinton on her statements over the past week demanding why she wasn't running "50 points ahead," after Hannity played a clip and ridiculed her "twitching."
"This is a person who is nuts," said Gingrich. "How could you stand there as a presidential candidate and go, 'Why aren't I 50 points ahead?' Well, someone in the audience could yell because you are a liar. Because you are corrupt. Because you look like you are angry all the time."
He also questioned her changing tone of voice, raising the pitch of his own voice as he asked Hannity if he thought, "If I had a different kind of voice that you'd be worried about me a whole lot."
"Somebody wrote me a note that I thought was very interesting, that said she is joyless," said Gingrich. "If you watch, there's no sense of happiness. There is no sense of enthusiasm. There is no sense of liking life. She is going through the motions."
And, he continued, Clinton might be relieved "if she got an invitation to go on a trip up the Amazon. I think this has got to be very, very painful for her. She can't get out of it. She spent her whole life getting to here. She put up with Bill Clinton for over 20 years to get to here. She paid her dues. We owe it. We owe it to her to make her president. And we are not responding appropriately. And she doesn't know what to do."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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