NEWT:
No. Look, I had the same feeling. In fact, to be honest, I thought Trump’s speech in Michigan was probably more important than the entire debate because he had big ideas. He outlined a case and he made it in a convincing way. I think part of our problem right now is everybody floats on the headlines and they don’t dig down into what’s really needs to be done. We should have had last night a talk about affordability, which is really about what the average person experiences inflation as, we should have had to talk about economic growth, which is the only way you can save Social Security and Medicare. We should have had talk about dramatically shrinking the government and frankly, somebody on the stage should have attacked this Senate deal, which I think is terrible for a continuing resolution which spends $6 billion on Ukraine, zero on controlling the border and doesn’t cut a penny. I mean, it is a total sellout. And I think that the American people, as you know from my article, we run a project called America’s New Majority Project, which people can find at that website and our data we do every two weeks, we do a national poll. It’s very 71% of the country wants to cut spending to bring down inflation and balance the budget. The country overall, in fact, over 55% of the country is willing to have a government shutdown if that’s what it takes to cut spending. And the gap between the American people and the Washington elites may be as big as it has ever been in my lifetime.
NEWT:
Well, in my mind Callista and I watched both debates and our conclusion after last night was basically that this is over. Nobody’s going to break out. Nobody is going to be particularly aggressive. I mean, I look, I think DeSantis has a great story in Florida. I think Tim Scott’s a wonderful U.S. senator. I think Nikki Haley has a lot of good things to say. But you back out of all that and you look at it none of them are going to overtake Trump. Trump is going to be the nominee. And I actually think that this should be the last debate. Just let’s go on accept the fact that Trump will be the nominee and figure out how do we beat Biden and win the Senate and increase our majority in the House. I think wasting the next six months dancing around makes no sense at all because none of these guys can break through. And the reason is, well, you said if somebody doesn’t have it in here and in here and they’re not prepared to look the American people in the eye and say, here’s how sick the system is, here’s what has to be done to fix it. And if we fix it, here’s how your pay is going to go up. Your job is going to get better. Your future is going to be better. We’ll help save Social Security and Medicare. And we’ll be a much stronger country than China. If they can’t do that, then all this back and forth looking like seventh graders in a bad play, I think doesn’t help anybody and frankly, is a little demeaning.
NEWT:
You know, you and I both worked with Reagan. You did in the White House? Yes, I did. As a member of Congress. And but here’s the problem. You didn’t you never heard Reagan try to be somebody else. I mean, I want Reagan’s ideas. And as you know, when we did the Contract with America, we stood on Reagan’s shoulders. Every single idea in the contract was something Reagan had been for. But this generation needs its own new version of leadership, which is what Trump has been giving it. And this generation needs to come to grips with the fact that the world has changed. If Reagan were alive today and he were running for president today, he’d have the same core philosophy, but he’d be applying it in a very different world. And I think, you know, when you look at the flash mobs in Philadelphia, you look at the fentanyl killing more people than the Vietnam War, you look at the borders that are a total, I think, deliberate disaster. There’s an article today that there’s a town of 75,000 made up entirely of illegal immigrants just outside Houston. I mean, this stuff is nuts. And somebody needs to be prepared to say, this is crazy and this is how we’ll fix it.
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