Transcript:

NEWT:

Well, I have to say, I think that may have been one of the most impactful and amazing interviews of your entire career. When I came in and was getting made up and getting ready.

NEWT:

That was Sean Penn. And you two had an intelligent, serious Ukrainian focused conversation that I think is as good as anything you’ll ever going to do. It’s just truly a remarkable half hour of history-making television.

NEWT:

Look, I think if the Biden administration were in any way in touch with reality, they would open up American oil and gas. They would actively create more liquefied natural gas ports. They would make it easy for the Europeans to get off dependence on Russia. There’s a lot of things you could do. One of the things which the congress should do is pass a law which says that nothing in the Iranian negotiations should allow the Russians to avoid sanctions. What you have right now is such total hypocrisy in the Biden White House where they say strong things about Putin, he’s a war criminal, he’s a murderer, he ought to be tried for war crimes. But at the same time, the number 1 person negotiating with Iran is a Russian and their goal is to get us to agree to give up all of the sanctions as it relates to Iran. If the U.S. Congress would say no, we’re serious about sanctioning Russia, we’re not going to give them a loophole, that would be a very powerful signal. Lastly something that you said, and Sean Penn agreed with, where are the jets? Where are the tanks? Where are the anti-ship missiles? Why are we allowing Ukrainians to die while our bureaucrats and politicians keep talking. As an American, it’s humiliating and embarrassing as a country.

NEWT:

Well, first of all, you may remember at one point we talked about the 40-mile-long column. I said at the time, think of it as targets, not necessary a threat. That’s because you could sense that the Ukrainians even early on were just faster, smarter, better organized than the Russians. They were beginning to cause real damage. But in addition to that, what you have, and I think we need a complete total overhaul of our intelligence system. There were totally wrong about Afghanistan. They were totally wrong about Ukraine. You may remember that general Milley, who is the worst chairman of the joint chiefs in American history, said oh, Putin will be in Kyiv in three days. It wasn’t true. I think Putin thought it would be true. I think the Russians came down sloppily, assuming arrogantly that Ukrainians would collapse and Zelensky is going to become a figure of Churchillian proportions. Zelensky has turned out to be a great national leader of the kind that we need in the United States and do not have. I think as a result, he’s going to change the hinge of history back towards democracy, back towards freedom and back towards the need to be honest about the cost of security, which is about strength. It’s not about diplomacy, it’s not about pious propaganda. It’s not about strong speeches. It’s about investing in effective military forces and effective intelligence sources, both of which are sadly missing right now in the United States.

Do you want access to more of Newt’s commentary? Become a member of Newt’s Inner Circle to get even more involved in our nation’s happenings. If you join today, you’ll receive a Limited Edition 2021 Inner Circle Member Challenge Coin.

More from the Gingrich 360 Team: