Newt Gingrich, a vice chair on Donald Trump’s transition team, mocked potential secretary of state pick Mitt Romney for “sucking up” to the President-elect at a dinner Tuesday night.
“You have never, ever in your career seen a wealthy adult who is independent, has been a presidential candidate, suck up at the rate that Mitt Romney is sucking up,” Gingrich told conservative radio host Laura Ingram on Wednesday.
“I am confident that he thinks now that he and Donald Trump are the best of friends, they have so many things in common. That they’re both such wise, brilliant people,” Gingrich continued. “And I’m sure last night at an elegant three-star restaurant, he was happy to share his version of populism, which involve a little fois gras, a certain amount of superb cooking, but put that in a populist happy manner.”
But a man of the people, Gingrich himself is not: A 2011 Washington Post report cited Gingrich’s longtime attorney Randy Evans, who said the former House speaker’s various private enterprises after leaving office had generated close to $100 million in the previous decade.
“The frog legs are very elegant. Callista and I both had fathers who ate frog legs. I did notice that Reince Priebus of Kenosha, Wisconsin decided not to have frog legs,” Gingrich said later in the interview. “I can’t wait to talk to Reince and find out exactly how a guy of his background worked his way through the menu.”
“Luckily for them, Mitt speaks French fluently. So he could help them with the menu. He could say: ‘Ahh, Mr. President-elect. This would be the perfect meal for you,’” Gingrich said.
Romney, who is rumored to be under consideration as Trump’s secretary of state, apparently rubs many in Trump’s inner circle the wrong way. Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager and now a senior adviser to the President-elect, said on Sunday, “I’m all for party unity, but I’m not sure we have to pay for that with the secretary of state position.”
Gingrich, who was once subject to speculation as a possible secretary of state, told McClatchy earlier this month that he “will not be in the Cabinet.”
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