Was Donald Trump's Speech Too Dark?; Newt Gingrich Clarifies Comments On Sharia Law
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's being called the most important speech of Donald Trump's political lifetime, certainly. It is drawing both positive and negative reviews this morning, even from Republicans. Some say the message was too dark and negative. Others say that it reminded them of Reagan and Nixon. So here to discuss and get his impressions, Newt Gingrich, former presidential candidate, of course, and house speaker who endorsed Donald Trump for president. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much fro being here. What were your impressions?</s>NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Good to be with you. I thought it was a very comprehensive speech. I thought it was very deliberately designed. It started when he, at the very beginning, says, my fellow Americans -- he doesn't say Republicans -- and he built on that, and he had a series of parts of the speech that were designed, I think, to appeal to African-Americans in the inner city, to appeal to the LGBTQ community, to appeal to a number of people. He didn't automatically say it would have been a traditional Republican speech.</s>CAMEROTA: Such as -- what were the parts of the speech that you think could have brought in new voters to him?</s>GINGRICH: Well, I think it's pretty clear that he's very likely -- both he and Mike Pence, are very likely to campaign in places like South Side Chicago, Baltimore, the places he mentioned, Detroit, and really make the case to the African-American community that 2,000 shootings in the first half of this year in Chicago are just plain unacceptable. That having 3,400 people killed in South Side Chicago since Obama became president is just unacceptable. And, that having their kids go to a school that doesn't work -- in Detroit, only five percent of the fourth graders can read. So having a Republican prepared to take seriously the lives of the poorest and least served Americans could be almost a revolutionary moment.</s>CAMEROTA: He's getting credit for working in the outreach to the LGBT community, but he said, I vow to protect you from foreign ideology and oppression. Is that a bold position, I'll protect you from foreign terrorism? What about domestic policies and rights here?</s>GINGRICH: Well, I think that's got to be part of the same conversation. But I don't think it's -- I think it's a fairly big step in the Republican Party to move in the direction that he was describing. And as you'll notice, it got very strong support on the floor of the convention, more than would you have thought. Romney could not have said this four years ago. He wouldn't have had the personal authority to say it, and the party wasn't ready for it to be said.</s>CAMEROTA: Some people think it was too bleak. That he painted too bleak a picture of where we are in America. Crime is down in America. Violent crime is down. The economy is picking up --</s>GINGRICH: It is not down in the biggest cities.</s>CAMEROTA: Violent crime, murder rate is down. It is down.</s>GINGRICH: Then how come it's up in Chicago, up in Baltimore, and up in --</s>CAMEROTA: There are pockets where certainly we --</s>GINGRICH: Your national capital, your third biggest city --</s>CAMEROTA: But violent crime across the country is down. We're not under siege in the way that we were in say, the 80s.</s>GINGRICH: The average American, looking at Dallas policemen -- and look at the states he listed. The Average American, I will bet you this morning, does not think crime is down, does not think they are safer.</s>CAMEROTA: But we are safer, and it is down.</s>GINGRICH: No, that's your view.</s>CAMEROTA: It's a fact.</s>GINGRICH: I just -- no. But what I said is also a fact. The average American feels -- when you can walk into a nightclub and get killed, when you can go to a party in a county government building and get killed, people don't think that their government is protecting them. When you have Baltimore, when you have policemen ambushed in Dallas -- your view, I understand your view. The current view is that liberals have a whole set of statistics which theoretically may be right, but it's not where human beings are. People are frightened. People feel that their government has abandoned them. 25 million Americans have dropped out of the middle class, according to Gallup.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes, well that's the economic figures that you're saying, though, unemployment has ticked down. But what you're saying is -- but hold on, Mr. Speaker, because you're saying liberals use these numbers, they use this sort of magic math. This is the FBI statistics. They're not a liberal organization.</s>GINGRICH: No, but what I said is equally true. People feel it.</s>CAMEROTA: They feel it, yes, but the facts don't support it.</s>GINGRICH: As a political candidate, I'll go with how people feel and I'll let you go with the theoriticians. But the same thing comes down -- the whole pattern of things Trump's talking about. The fact is, statistically, five percent of the fourth graders in Detroit can read. Ninety-five percent of the fourth graders are being cheated by the teacher's union and an incompetent system.</s>CAMEROTA: As a leader, is it important for the leader, somebody who wants to be the president of the free world, to paint a more optimistic future? Not a bleak --</s>GINGRICH: We have a very optimistic future. He's painting a bleak president.</s>CAMEROTA: What did he say optimistically about the future?</s>GINGRICH: Said we're going to solve all these things.</s>CAMEROTA: How?</s>GINGRICH: By having the kind of leadership that cuts through the red tape, cuts through the boloney, and gets things done.</s>CAMEROTA: People contrast it to Ronald Reagan, and so let me just play for everyone a portion of Ronald Reagan's 1980 speech at the RNC, back in 1980, and the different tone that he took than Donald Trump. Listen to this.</s>RONALD REAGAN (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Everywhere, we've met thousands of Democrats, independents, and Republicans from all economic conditions, all walks of life, bound together in that community of shared values of family, work, neighborhood, peace, and freedom. They're concerned, yes. They're not frightened. They're disturbed, but not dismayed.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The first task for our new administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens our communities.</s>CAMEROTA: How about that? When Ronald Reagan said, they're concerned but not frightened, they're disturbed but not dismayed --</s>GINGRICH: I love dealing with you guys. I was in that campaign. I can get you a passage where Ronald Reagan says, a recession is when your brother is unemployed, a depression is when you're unemployed, recovery is when Jimmy Carter is unemployed. He spent half his time pounding on Jimmy Carter.</s>CAMEROTA: But in terms of the bleak picture, wouldn't it be nice to hear, Americans are concerned but they're not frightened. They're disturbed but not dismayed -- isn't that a rosier picture?</s>GINGRICH: I think that was a rosier time. You tell me if you were a mother living in South Side Chicago and you couldn't have a picnic outside because you're afraid of drive-by shootings, you don't think that's bleak? You're a middle class person in a small town in West Virginia where Hillary Clinton has just announced she wants to destroy your industry. You don't think that's bleak?</s>CAMEROTA: One more thing I want to ask you about, and that is for some clarification about what he said that seems to have shifted from his Muslim ban. Last night, he said, I want to immediately suspend immigration from any nation compromised by terrorism.</s>GINGRICH: There's going to be a direct fight -- first of all, there's going to be a direct fight over Syrians. The Clinton position is, we're willing to risk American lives by bringing in Syrian refugees about whom we know nothing.</s>CAMEROTA: Not nothing. We've talked about -- they are vetted --</s>GINGRICH: Vetted how? We have no records. First of all, the largest number of refugees are male. The afghan refugee who just killed somebody, who tried to kill people in Germany was male. The Tunisian was male.</s>CAMEROTA: Many, many women and children are coming in. They first go through the</s>U.N. -- GINGRICH: The 2,000 men who sexually assaulted 1,200 women in Germany at New Year's were male.</s>CAMEROTA: So when he says, any nation compromised by terrorism, he means just Syria or he means any nation --</s>GINGRICH: I think, look, you start with the easy one. The fight is over Syria. What is Hillary's rationale for expanding the number of people from an area which is totally infested by ISIS in which ISIS cheerfully says every day, we're going to send some of fighters as part of the refugees? We don't have the data inside Syria to know anything. That's just a fact. We don't have the intelligence penetration, we don't have any police cooperation, we don't know anything about these people.</s>CAMEROTA: So that's what he meant when he said any nation compromised by terrorism? He meant Syria?</s>GINGRICH: I think the focus, the fight he'd be glad to pick is on Syria.</s>CAMEROTA: Former Speaker, Newt Gingrich. Thanks so much for being on NEW DAY. Always good to have you here.</s>CAMEROTA: All right. Now that the RNC is wrapped up, we are going to head to Philadelphia for the Democratic convention. Next week, Hillary Clinton's vice-presidential pick could be announced as early as this morning. So, will she try to steal Trump's thunder with her pick? We'll explore that when we come back.