Steven – And right now, we saw with the Super Committee’s failure, that $250 million might get cut.
Newt – Well, see I just think the whole sequester idea is a very bad idea. I think it’s a very destructive way to try to run the government. And I think in defense it’s absolutely impossible as a solution.
Steven - We saw Majority Leader Cantor last year suggest that he would work to cut all foreign aid, and then roll Israel into the defense budget. Is that something you think is wise?
Newt – Well, I’m not sure I’d cut all foreign aid. There’s humanitarian need that saves millions of lives. I would probably reshape economic aid very dramatically into a probusiness tax credit to encourage American companies to invest overseas to both create wealth for America and wealth for foreign countries. And there’s some places where frankly what you really do is paying rent. It’s not exactly aid. It’s a way of giving your money to a country which is allowing you to use an airfield, or to do other things in that country’s territory.
Steven – Now, one of the members of your foreign policy team is James Woolsey, the former CIA director. He’s actually made some pretty explicit calls for the release of Jonathan Pollard. Does that mean that there actually would be a release of Jonathan Pollard?
Newt – Well, I have a bias in favor of clemency. He has served a very long time. I have a working group studying it right now. What I would promise is that as President I would appoint a very small panel that would be very willing to look at the facts. If in fact he has served as long or longer than most people who have the same sentence, then I’d be willing to consider clemency. I’d want to listen to the Secretaries of Defense and intelligence chiefs who have deeply opposed it, and find out why have they deeply opposed it. You know, President Clinton considered doing it, and then-Director of Intelligence Tenet I think threatened to resign. So there’s something there that I don’t know as a non-President, and I’d want to be thoroughly briefed. My bias would be infavor of clemency. He served I think 25 years. And I think you’d have some conditional clemency. He couldn’t publish. He couldn’t make money out of it. You know, he’d have to think through the conditions. But if we can get to a point where I’m satisfied that there’s no national security threat, and if he’s in fact served within the range of people who have had a similar problem, then I’d be inclined to consider clemency.
Steven - Now for the electorate, for the American Jewish community, we’ve seen massive amounts of voting for the Democratic party. We’ve seen 75%, 78%. And it’s been a long time that we’ve heard for every few years, that oh, this is the year that Republicans are going to swing a lot of Jewish voters. Do you think you can swing a lot of Jewish voters?
Newt – I think we’ll swing some. I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Reagan I think got as high as 40% at one point. And I think George W. Bush’s reelection may have been close to that. So, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see us do better. I think economically people who are worried about jobs and free enterprise and investments realize that Obama is really bad for them. In National Security, people who care about the survival of Israel know that Obama is not very good for that. So I think there’s probably a larger number of Jewish voters today than there would have been three years ago who are available to vote.
Steven – Why do you think the Jews vote in such numbers for the Democrats right now?
Newt – I think it’s a combination of historic patterns, that you had an entire wave of Jews who migrated here in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was where they imprinted as Democrats, and he did a lot of things they believed in. I think second, there’s a deep strain of social Liberalism in the Jewish community that really blocks a lot of people from considering the Republican Party on non-national security grounds.
Steven – Alright, well, Newt Gingrich thank you very much for joining us.
Newt – Thank you, good to be with you.
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