Newt Gingrich Warns Trump Has a ‘Very Difficult Choice’ to Make On Iran, Arguing Negotiations Won’t Work

Former House Speaker and Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich joined Outnumbered on Monday and was on hand to offer the first reaction to President Donald Trump’s lengthy presser in the Oval Office.

“Well, in the first place, the number of things the Trump administration is doing on health care is astonishing. And, in fact, it’s so much, nobody can cover it. And so across the board, they’re doing things from helping have children at a young age to dealing with diabetes, to progress on Alzheimer’s, to working on cost. It’s really quite astonishing. And that part of it was terrific,” Gingrich said, reacting to Trump launching moms.gov, a new maternal healthcare initiative aimed at supporting expecting mothers.

“I think the most historically important section was when they talked about Iran, and that’s because I think that the president, when he gets back from China, is going to have a very difficult choice,” Gingrich continued, pivoting to the Iran war.

“You know, the Iranians are not going to give in. And so he’s either got to decide—and he was very clear again today—I mean, he believes the Iranians having nuclear weapons is a mortal threat to American cities. Well, then, if he really believes that, he better have the Defense Department or the Department of Defense figuring out a campaign strategy that allows us to stop them from doing it,” he concluded.

“Speaker, having led in all different sorts of situations, you’ve seen how it can go on Capitol Hill, right? How surprised or not are you that the War Powers Resolution—the Democrats say they’re all bullish on it and they want to curtail the powers of this president—doesn’t get by even the Democrats?” followed up host Harris Faulkner.

“I think when you look at an opponent who has, for 47 years, chanted ‘Death to America,’ the idea that you’re going to in any way look like you’re pro-Iranian probably stops two-thirds of the members from raising the War Powers Act. I mean, what are they? If they raise it, are they really going to vote to stop the President of the United States from dealing with what he thinks is a threat?” Gingrich replied, adding:

I mean, this will become a real issue this summer. You want to risk Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington, or are you prepared to say, “Yeah, this is really tough stuff, but we cannot allow the Iranians to have nuclear weapons and missiles that can reach the US”? And when you look at polling, when that becomes the issue—and people don’t like war, they don’t like fighting—but when that becomes the issue, you get very big numbers that say, “Yep, you’ve got to do something.”

Faulkner agreed, “Yeah, and we’re on, like, the sixth vote. I think we just had that, and it’s still that this president is able to do what he needs to do.”

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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