Former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich complemented President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech on Tuesday, calling it “helpful” and “very powerful,” in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room.
The former Georgia lawmaker admitted that the speech was in parts very liberal, but that, according to Gingrich, simply means that the President stayed true to who he is.
“I think I was apparently different than a lot of Republicans because I thought it was a pretty good speech by Barack Obama,” said Gingrich. “I liked the part where he talked about the Declaration of Independence, I thought that was helpful, I liked his commitment to the work ethic, I thought that was helpful.”
Gingrich, who as a former Speaker of the House enjoyed an honorable seat at the inauguration, pointed out that Republicans shouldn’t be upset with a liberal President including liberal agenda in his speeches.
“That is legitimately who he is, that doesn’t mean we have to vote for it, doesn’t mean we have to help pass it,” said Gingrich. “But let’s be honest, this guy is the most liberal president in American history and for a guy from that background who had just won reelection, I thought it was a very powerful speech.”
Gingrich added that he would handle the issues mentioned in the speech in a very different way than the President and that Obama was wrong in his comments about war and peace, which the Speaker believes were historically inaccurate and “dangerously misleading.”
Gingrich has a PhD in modern European history, and taught history and geography for eight years at the University of West Georgia. He represented Georgia’s 6th congressional district for 20 years until his resignation in 1999.
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