Courtesy of the Jewish Channel
Steven - Welcome to this special Jewish Channel interview. I’m here with former
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich, thank you for joining us.
Newt - Good to be with you.
Steven - So I think most Americans over the age of 18 are very familiar with a lot of your
domestic policy statements, but your foreign policy is somewhat unknown. So, what do you think would surprise American voters?
Newt - I think probably the degree to which I’m willing to tell the truth and to follow
American interests, and to follow American values. And if that makes some of our intellectual elite uncomfortable, or if that makes some foreign countries uncomfortable, I’m actually not very concerned. I think we’ve had a period of being kidded about what’s going on in the world. We’ve had a period of using American resources to prop up peoplewho hate us, and we’ve had a period of pretty ineffective foreign policy. And this is much deeper than just Barack Obama. I think the State Department, the agency for the national development, the way our intelligence community has been run, all these things need to be fundamentally rethought.
Steven - Well, let’s get into that, because its only been 4 years since 8 years of the
George W. Bush administration. So, we’re all very familiar and remember very well what happened. And so, what is a different Republican direction that you expect to take in those areas?
Newt – Well, I think first of all, I would like to see us dramatically overhaul the State Department, move it towards a much more effective, much more pro-freedom and pro- American institution. I’ve talked about people like John Bolton playing a leading role, because I think the State Department is pretty dysfunctional at the present time. Second, I think Congress has to repeal a lot of the restrictions on our intelligence community.
We need a better ability to do covert operations. We need a better ability to gather intelligence. Today, our intelligence agencies are muscle bound by congressional rules and regulations. And the result is we rely on people who may be our enemies, we rely onPakistanis and Egyptians and others to get information, when in fact they may have very different interests and they may be feeding us very distorted information.
Steven – Now, you mentioned John Bolton. On Israel, who do you see as some of your ideological fellow travelers?
Newt - Well I’m not quite sure how to answer that. I see myself as in many ways being pretty close to Bibi Netanyahu in thinking about the dangers of the world. I believe in a tough-minded realism. I believe that if somebody is firing rockets at you, they are probably not engaged in the peace process. I believe if somebody goes around and says you don’t have a right to exist, they’re probably not prepared to negotiate for peace. I think if someone says they wanna wipe you out, you should believe them. So I see a much more tougher-minded, and much more honest approach to the Middle East in a Gingrich administration.
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