Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said he thinks the guilty verdict delivered to former President Trump this week only makes him stronger and the conviction may end up backfiring on the left.
Gingrich joined John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM’s “Cats Roundtable,” where they discussed the jury’s decision to convict Trump on all 34 felony counts against him for falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to conceal an alleged affair with porn actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
Gingrich commended the former president on how he has handled himself since the verdict.
“Trump handled all of this with such dignity and such endurance, that I think he actually grew in stature that people realize … this guy’s taking a tremendous beating, just for the right to try to save the country,” he said.
Gingrich argued “in a funny kind of way” the hush money trial and conviction may “backfire on the left and leave them, I think, weaker than they were if they never [had] gone down this road. And that’s a big factor.”
Gingrich slammed the verdict as “fake conviction” covered by “fake news.”
“Well, I think we’re at a genuine crisis point. And that we just saw the most phony case ever brought against the presidential candidate,” Gingrich said. “We see that Trump has had a fake conviction covered, of course, by the fake news.”
The former speaker blamed Trump’s guilty verdict on the Biden campaign, who he said is seeking to remove Trump from the election. The Biden campaign had no involvement in the case. Trump was convicted by 12 jurors from New York.
The former president criticized the conviction, vowing to appeal. In remarks given after the decision was handed down, Trump said the “real verdict” would be on Election Day.
The Trump campaign said it has raked in more than $50 million in donations since Thursday.
Gingrich argued that the “shocking result” of the verdict was that it made some Republicans and independents angry and want to get involved financially.
“I think people just looked up and said ‘this is now so sick that I have to get involved,’” Gingrich said.
