Up until now, Newt Gingrich's strategy of tapping into the anti-media sentiment had served him well at the debates. In the last CNN debate however, Newt went after John King so hard that other networks' anchors have been defending John King over the last few days.
While it was obvious at the time that Gingrich seemed to be attacking so harshly that maybe he hoped no one would even bother to watch ABC's interview with his ex-wife. His condemnation for even being asked a question about it was so strong that some viewers may have even felt sorry for King. We now learn that his use of trying to put the blame on ABC for even airing it, thereby slamming their credibility was understandably not well received by the network at all.
Viewers may remember how he often attacked Michele Bachmann, always insisting that everything she said was not true. Newt's pattern of playing the blame game while under fire in an attempt to deflect from the question, may have just finally backfired on him, big time!
In this debate, he had claimed that every close friend of theirs during that time period could serve as character witnesses that his second wife was not telling the truth. Newt Gingrich went so far as to insist that his campaign had "offered several people that ABC could talk to" but that ABC was not interested. Basically, he strongly insinuated that ABC had no intention of verifying the story with several character witnesses that his campaign supposedly provided to the network and instead they chose to be irresponsible and despicable in running the story anyway.
Turns out that John King verified with ABC after the debate that Gingrich's claims of offering these several other witnesses never happened. John King interviewed Newt in order to try to clear-up the discrepancy. Not only did Newt deny it again but then tried to back-off of it stating that he needed to talked to his staffer, JC Hammond. Seems that there is always someone else to try to blame. After continuing to be pressured by King, Newt's campaign finally admits that Newt's statements were wrong and that the only people that were offered by the campaign for ABC to talk with were his two daughters.
So, Newt attacked John King ferociously at the debate using statements that were absolutely not true, blamed ABC for being irresponsible and despicable in their reporting and fabricated events in order to try to gain favor with voters. Not a smooth set of moves for Newt Gingrich.
This huge mistake could prove to be catastrophic for his campaign if it receives the coverage that it deserves. John King has just recently aired this damaging story explaining what happened and can be viewed here.
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