Former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is pushing back against reports that he was highly critical of Donald Trump during his speech Wednesday at the 2016 BIO International Convention in San Francisco.
During Gingrich’s speech, Stat News reporter Rebecca Robins was live tweeting and quoted Gingrich as saying that Trump was an “absurd amateur” and his comments on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel were a “really stupid mistake.”
.@newtgingrich: Trump “made a really stupid mistake last week, and it took him about 3 days to learn.” Calls Trump an “absurd amateur.”
— Rebecca Robbins (@RebeccaDRobbins) June 8, 2016
Several outlets picked up the story based on Robbins’ reporting, which prompted Gingrich to push back and say his comments were being taken out of context.
Totally misleading report about my talk at Bio this morning. In 90 minute dialogue made clear Trump is learning, a gifted amateur, will win
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) June 8, 2016
Following the tweet, Robbins released a transcript of the speech which shed more light on Gingrich’s comments. While the phrasing “absurd amateur” is awkward, the context of the speech suggests that rather than slamming Trump Gingrich was expressing his disbelief that Trump could do so well with no background in politics.
“You have a Trump— this absurd amateur,” he said, according to Robbins’ transcript. “I mean it’s not technically possible—I mean, all of us, men and women in politics— it’s not possible to announce in June for the presidency having never run for anything and beat out 16 people, of whom at least 8 or 9 of them are really serious people who you would have normally thought they were potential presidents.”
Full transcript of segment of @newtgingrich remarks about Trump at #BIO2016 panel this AM. https://t.co/xteZIL70Nj pic.twitter.com/UIsFek9tSC
— Rebecca Robbins (@RebeccaDRobbins) June 8, 2016
Gingrich has had a consistently inconsistent record on Trump. While he went on Sean Hannity Tuesday night to praise Trump’s speech following the night’s primaries, the day before he took Trump to task for his attacks on Curiel, calling his comments “inappropriate.”
