Gingrich: Trump treated with most hostility of any president since Lincoln
Oct 18, 2017, 3:15 PM | Updated: 6:21 pm
President Donald Trump looks down at his podium during a news conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
PHOENIX — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that Donald Trump has been treated with more hostility than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
“No president in modern times, probably no president since Lincoln, had had as much active hostility as Trump faces every single day,” Gingrich told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Mac and Gaydos.
Gingrich said some of the hostility stems from a very divided Congress that Trump will have to unify if he wants to get anything done.
He said he was able to work with former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, because he was a more moderate leader with a more politically balanced Congress, but times have changed.
“You have to figure out can you put together a majority and get things done and I think it’s hard,” he said. “I think it’s going to stay hard, frankly.”
The former speaker said the president can be very effective when he wants to be, but he’ll have to likely make some changes if he wants everyone to sit down in a cooperative way.
“Spend more time listening to people,” he said. “Bring members of the House and Senate down and listen to them. My model was always, ‘Listen, learn, help and lead,’ in that order, and I really think that motto works.”
Gingrich also said the media was to blame because it sometimes fails to report on Trump’s positives.
“There’s a lot more to Trump than the elite media wants to cover, so I think the average American doesn’t necessarily get all the things Trump is doing,” he said.
