Newt Gingrich says President Barack Obama would not have selected Hillary Clinton for his running mate in 2012, if only to stay away from her husband. 
 
 The former Republican House speaker discussed "Double Down," the upcoming book on the 2012 presidential election, on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday with Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden and journalist David Maraniss, On the president, Gingrich said, “If you had said to him, ‘You have to be re-elected but Bill Clinton is going to be next to you for four years,’ he would have said, ‘It ain’t worth it. I don’t need this level of pain.’” 
 
 Gingrich was responding to a claim in the book that some of the president's advisers considered replacing Vice President Joe Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton. 
 
 A presidential candidate himself in 2012, Gingrich also said the cautious Mitt Romney would have never selected New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for his running mate. He called Christie a “wild prosecutor with a huge body and a huge ego,” and said the governor would have overshadowed Romney on the campaign trail. 
 
 "Romney would have shrunk, and Christie would have blossomed," Gingrich said. 
 
 Hillary Clinton has a clear inside path to the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Gingrich said. “If she decides to run, she probably has the nomination almost without competition," he said. But he added that Clinton - a former first lady, senator and secretary of state - might have a difficult general election race against someone like Christie, who would be able to bill himself as a Washington outsider. 
 
 Read more about: Hillary Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie, 2012 ||||| Sen. Dianne Feinstein says the shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport underscores the need for an assault weapons ban and greater gun control measures. 
 
 Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday, Feinstein paid tribute to fallen TSA officer Gerardo Hernandez, the first TSA employee to die in the line of duty, then turned her attention to guns. A strong supporter of an assault weapons ban, the California Democrat said, “the weapon was a .223 MP-15, where the MP stands for military and police, clearly designed not for general consumption … Same gun that was used at Aurora. Would I do a bill? Sure, I would do a bill. I mean, I believe this down deep in my soul.” 
 
 But Feinstein said that such a bill would be very difficult to pass. “There’s a hammer lock on the Congress by the gun owners and gun people," she said. 
 
 In January, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, but the bill stalled. 
 
 Read more about: Dianne Feinstein, Face The Nation, Gun Control, Los Angeles ||||| Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney praised New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Sunday, dismissing concerns his own campaign reportedly had about tapping the governor as a running mate in 2012. 
 
 Christie, Romney said, could get the Republican Party back on track in 2016. 
 
 "Chris could easily become our nominee and save our party and help get this nation on the right track again. They don't come better than Chris Christie," Romney said on NBC's "Meet the Press." 
 
 Appearing on the Sunday morning show almost a year after losing the 2012 election, Romney dismissed reports in the forthcoming book "Double Down: Game Change 2012" that his campaign had concerns about Christie as a running mate, saying there was nothing the vetting team found that hadn't been adequately dealt with by Christie already. 
 
 “I know in a campaign people drudge up all the old stuff again, but he’s already dealt with it," Romney said. "His health is very solid, very good. There's not an issue there. ... He's a very popular governor in a very blue state. That's the kind of popularity and the kind of track record the Republican Party needs if we're going to take back the White House.” 
 
 Romney stopped short, however, of predicting Christie will be the party's nominee in 2016, saying he is one of the strongest of a few "compelling" stories. 
 
 “It's kind of early to say who is the most electable and who would be the favorite candidate," Romney said. "But you look at Chris Christie and say that's a very impressive guy with a great track record, with a demonstrated ability to work across the aisle. ... It's a pretty compelling story. And there's some other very compelling stories: Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio. I mean, there is a long list of very capable people, but Chris Christie stands out as one of the very strongest lights of the Republican Party.” 
 
 Moderator David Gregory asked Romney about one of the names he left out of his list, that of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). 
 
 “I’m not going to disqualify anybody, but I think I’ve indicated some of the names I think are most effective at becoming elected and we’ll see where it goes," Romney said. 
 
 The former Massachusetts governor said electability matters in addition to conservative credentials. 
 
 “I had a very conservative platform, and that kind of conservative platform, I think, is the foundation of any successful campaign in 2016," Romney said. " I just happen to think you want to combine conservatism with the ability to get elected." 
 
 As for a potential opponent of any Republican nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is considered the favorite for the Democrats in 2016, Romney was optimistic. 
 
 “Anybody can be beaten. She’s a very well-known figure. Obviously if she becomes the nominee, we’ll be taking a very close look at her record as secretary of state," Romney said. "She’ll have a record to be examined. Hopefully we’ll have a nominee that’s able to do that effectively and to demonstrate his or her own strong record.” 
 
 Read more about: Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, 2016 Elections ||||| Rep. Mike Rogers continued his criticism of the Obamacare rollout on Sunday, saying the Obama administration should temporarily shut down the website because of cybersecurity concerns. 
 
 Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said even the administration admitted there was a “high degree of risk” with the website. 
 
 Rogers has been a harsh critic of the Affordable Care Act rollout, and has long raised cybersecurity concerns about HealthCare.gov. At Wednesday’s hearing with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Rogers said HHS had conducted “a completely unacceptable level of security.” 
 
 Rogers also said at Wednesday’s hearing that poor cybersecurity measures “have exposed millions of Americans.” 
 
 And he echoed that on Sunday, saying it was necessary to take down the website to protect Americans' personal information from cyberattacks. “They’re trying to change a tire on a car going 75 miles an hour down the expressway," Rogers said Sunday. "That’s not the way cybersecurity works.” 
 
 Read more about: Cybersecurity, Mike Rogers, Obamacare, HealthCare.Gov ||||| Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Sunday rejected President Barack Obama's recent references to the health care plan his state put into place as the basis for Obamacare, saying the president didn't "learn the lessons" of Massachusetts and, more importantly, didn't learn the lesson to tell the truth. 
 
 “The president failed to learn the lessons that came from the experience in Massachusetts," Romney said on NBC's "Meet the Press," saying a state-by-state approach is better than a "one-size-fits-all" plan. 
 
 “Perhaps the most important lesson the president, I think, failed to learn was, you have to tell the American people the truth. And when he told the American people that you could keep your health insurance if you wanted to keep that plan, period, he said that time and again, he wasn't telling the truth. And I think that fundamental dishonesty has really put in peril the whole foundation of his second term.” 
 
 Appearing almost exactly a year after the 2012 election, the former Republican presidential nominee said regardless of how you evaluate Obamacare, the fact that it was based on a lie shows the president can no longer lead. 
 
 “The fact that the president sold it on a basis that was not true has undermined the foundation of his second term. I think it's rotting it away," Romney said. "We've got to have a president that can lead, and right now he's not able to do so.” 
 
 If the president had been honest from the get-go, Romney suggested the Affordable Care Act wouldn't have passed. 
 
 “Obamacare barely made it through Washington, as you know. And there is no question in my mind but had the president been truthful and told the American people that millions would lose their insurance and millions more would see their premiums skyrocket, had he told them that at the time it was going through Washington, there would have been such a huge cry against it, it would not have passed," Romney said. 
 
 Romney criticized the government shutdown over Obamacare, though, saying the only way to move forward is to for the GOP to take back control of Washington. 
 
 “The shutdown was not the right way to go, in my view, but the right way to replace Obamacare is to elect Republicans to the Senate and the House and, ultimately, the White House and repair Obamacare, replace it, and put in place something that’s going to do a better job,” Romney said. 
 
 Read more about: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Massachusetts, Obamacare
– Mitt Romney knows a little something about health care reform, and he threw his two cents on the pile today, saying President Obama "failed to learn the lessons" of Massachusetts. Romney took issue with Obama's "one-size-fits-all" approach, notes Politico, adding that reform should have been left to the states. But Obama's biggest failing, contends Romney, came when "he told the American people that you could keep your health insurance if you wanted to keep that plan, period," which was "a fundamental dishonesty." "The fact that the president sold it on a basis that was not true has undermined the foundation of his second term. I think it's rotting it away. We've got to have a president that can lead, and right now he's not able to do so." Elsewhere on your Sunday dial: Romney on Chris Christie: "Chris could easily become our nominee and save our party and help get this nation on the right track again. They don't come better than Chris Christie. He's a very popular governor in a very blue state. That's the kind of popularity and the kind of track record the Republican Party needs if we're going to take back the White House." Newt Gingrich on why Romney didn't pick Christie for veep: "Romney would have shrunk, and Christie would have blossomed." Gingrich on why Obama didn't put Hillary Clinton on his 2012 ticket: "If you had said to him, ‘You have to be re-elected but Bill Clinton is going to be next to you for four years,’ he would have said, ‘It ain’t worth it. I don’t need this level of pain.'" Dianne Feinstein on LAX shooting: "The weapon was a .223 MP-15, where the MP stands for military and police, clearly designed not for general consumption. Same gun that was used at Aurora. Would I do a bill? Sure, I would do a bill. I mean, I believe this down deep in my soul." Mike Rogers on why HealthCare.gov should be shut down temporarily: "They’re trying to change a tire on a car going 75 miles an hour down the expressway. That’s not the way cybersecurity works."