FOX News contributor Newt Gingrich discusses the United States’ strategy of increasing economic pressure on the Iranian regime on FOX Business’ “Kudlow.” <\/p>\n
LARRY KUDLOW, FOX BUSINESS: Pleasure. Welcome back to the show, my good friend, Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker, of course, and Fox News contributor. We got Newt all hooked up. Newt, can I just read you real quick from Conrad Black? You know Conrad, a brilliant guy writing in the New York Sun, as many of us do. Not even the Democrats, okay? They’re trying, Democrats in the media, they’re trying to stop the overwhelming and seismic triumph of the United States and Israel. That is, listen to this, Newt, the swiftest military defeat of a country since the German occupation of Denmark in less than six hours in 1940. And I have compared this regime as the most gruesome government since the Nazis of the 30s and the 40s. Now, here’s my point. This thing’s going to end. The U.S. and Israel are going to win between banking and blocking, and if we have to, more bombing, blockading and bombing. The Democrats are making a gigantic mistake. I may be in the minority here, but as a political selling point, when the dust clears, the Democrats are making a huge mistake. This is a gargantuan, transforming, positive thing that Mr. Trump has led. What do you say? What are you thinking on this now? NEWT GINGRICH: Well, I think there are two parts of this. First of all, I think when your country’s in a war, it is never useful to be on the side of the opposition. And to have a pro-Iranian Democratic party is not, in the long run, a very good place to be. Second, the real reason, the ultimate reason for taking on Iran, given that they have been at war with us for 47 years and have said so for 47 years, is that if they get nuclear weapons and missiles that can reach the United States, they’re going to use them. I mean, when people chant death to America every day for 47 years, you have to be pretty stupid not to believe that maybe they mean death to America. So in a funny way, Donald Trump is fighting for Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, in all these so-called blue cities, because he understands that they’re American cities. The Democrats apparently, for political purposes, are willing to risk losing millions of American lives and having major cities hit by nuclear weapons. This isn’t that. We need this national debate. We need to just have it out. Everybody who thinks you can trust the Iranians, you ought to be with the Democrats. Everybody who thinks 47 years of active warfare against us doesn’t count, you ought to be with the Democrats. Everybody who thinks that death to America as a slogan doesn’t really mean death to America, you ought to be with the Democrats. But don’t kid yourself. You’re running the historic risk of allowing an evil totalitarian, religiously driven regime, which has killed over 40,000 of its own people this year. Over 40,000. You’re taking the risk. Do you think it’s okay for them to have the weapons to destroy your cities? I think that should be a major national debate this fall. KUDLOW: I think you’re a thousand percent right. I’m glad you put it exactly that way. Look, you know, Republicans want to run, I understand this, they want to run on the economy, they want to run on tax cuts, they want to run on border security. That’s fine. I’m all for that and so are you. But they’re ignoring this. I’d like to see many more Republican leaders come out and say what you just said and talk about how important what Mr. Trump is doing, how important this is, not just for now, but for our children and our grandchildren, for the long-run health of the United States. Because obviously, as you point out, make no mistake about it, Iran would like to nuclear bomb us and they are devoting all of their resources to that end. That includes Israel, that includes the dopes in Europe that don’t understand it either. But I’m not worried about Europe, I’m worried about America. That’s their goal and we should talk much more about that because Democrats don’t seem to care about a nuclear bombing of the United States. GINGRICH: Well, and remember, in addition to the Democrats being crazy in terms of foreign policy and the Iranian threat, the Democratic frontrunner for governor in California, Steyer, just came out with a proposal that he would pay for returning all of the illegal immigrants who have been deported. People don’t realize when Donald Trump said at the State of the Union, you all are just crazy. He really was saying something very profound that sounded like a throwaway line. Steyer is crazy. And if you go through his whole platform, it gets nuttier and nuttier. If you look at Mamdani, I mean, the things he wants to do, he now wants to tax empty apartments for people who don’t have residence in New York and thinks he’ll raise a half trillion, half billion dollars doing it. I mean, just you go around the country, this is, the Democrats have genuinely been taken over by people who are totally out of touch with reality and who often are frankly anti-American. KUDLOW: Yes, I couldn’t agree more. And again, the importance of the success, I mean, I’m not here to predict, but look, as Conrad Black is, we are winning this war. The casualties are very, very low. We’re not having massive ground troops. We’re not having, it’s not just seven, eight years. It’s not a forever war. It’s ending a forever war. I mean, what Trump has done is so heroic. It’s so courageous, but it’s just so important. You can’t leave this. Last point, Newt. You cannot, we cannot in good conscience leave the Iranian problem to the next president or the next president after that. It has to stop. You can’t keep, you know, you can’t keep kicking the bucket down the road. You just can’t keep kicking the can down the road. GINGRICH: Look, the forever war is the 47 years the Iranians have been killing Americans. 47 years they’ve been killing us. And different presidents didn’t have the courage or the insight or the wisdom. We have to do two things, clear out the Persian Gulf’s oil flows and encourage an insurgency, an armament insurgency, and eliminate the current government. The current government can never be trusted because it will rely on the Koreans, the Chinese, and the Russians to rebuild with remarkable speed. If Trump will stay tough, ignore all of his critics, and take those two steps, open up the Gulf, and have an insurgency that can defeat, remember, 90% of the country hates the government, but they don’t have any weapons. They don’t have any organization. You can provide those without a single American being on the ground in Iran. KUDLOW: Right, agreed. He’ll never make a bad deal. He’ll never make a bad deal. Newt Gingrich, thank you. Appreciate it very much, sir.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n