Newt Gingrich was in attendance for Mitt Romney’s big fundraiser with Donald Trump in Nevada last night. He told Politico’s Reid Epstein that the birther conspiracy — which Gingrich said he does not personally believe in — was not based in racism, but rather on politics:
Asked directly if the foreign-born charge is racist, Gingrich replied: “No.”
He continued: “I think that Obama creates very powerful emotions about him, largely because of the radicalism of his views. And I think that that’s a key fact. I mean, nobody runs around and asks whether Colonel West was born in the United States. He’s an African-American, you know. He’s a congressman. Nobody runs around and says, ‘Is Tim Scott born in the United States?’ He’s a congressman. He’s African-American. So the idea of asserting that any charge against Obama somehow manages magically in the media to get back to racism, I think is just one more device to protect Obama.”
