OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) made a couple of stunning predictions about the 2024 presidential election during a Christmas Eve interview with Fox News that is sure to turn heads.
For one, Gingrich, who led the GOP takeover of the House in 1994 for the first time in four decades, does not believe President Biden will run again.
For another, he told Fox News that the “last rumor” he heard was that Hillary Clinton was going to make a third try for the White House after losing out to Barack Obama in 2008 and losing outright to Donald Trump in 2016.
“I fully expect Biden to not run again. I think the Democratic Party would be in a state of shock if he did,” Gingrich said.
What’s more, he added, Vice President Kamala Harris appears even “weaker than Biden,” likely a reference to recent polling data showing her approval ratings sinking even lower than the president.
“So the last rumor I heard was that Hillary is going to run, and I think it would say a lot about the chaos of America if Hillary Clinton reemerged one more time,” Gingrich told “The Ingraham Angle” guest host Raymond Arroyo, in response to Biden telling ABC News anchor David Muir earlier that he planned to run next time if his health was good.
“Well, in all honesty, what choice does he have? You go can’t out there and say, ‘Look, I am doing so badly and my administration is so stupid, I think I will quit three years from now’? Gingrich said, noting that Biden’s stature with voters has been greatly diminished thanks to a series of policies and issues he is facing that are not going well for him.
“I think Kamala Harris is weaker than Biden. So, the last rumor I heard was that Hillary’s gonna run. And I think that would say a lot about chaos of America if Hillary Clinton reemerged one more time,” Gingrich said.
The Washington Examiner noted further:
The Democratic president has some successes under his belt, including signing a $1 trillion infrastructure bill last month. But Biden and Harris have job approval numbers around the 40% mark nearly one year into their administration. If Clinton were to get in the ring again, she could be in for a rematch against former President Donald Trump, who beat her in 2016. Clinton recently predicted Trump would run again and be a “make-or-break point” for the country.
Gingrich, a congressman from Georgia in the House from 1979 to 1999, said the coronavirus pandemic, economy, and southern border situation is “weakening” Biden, adding his position was only worsened this week when Sen. Joe Manchin said he would not support the Build Back Better Act.
“He is already weaker than Jimmy Carter was at this stage. And Carter went down to the worst Electoral College defeat of any incumbent president in modern history,” Gingrich said, before going on to predict that Republicans will win back control of the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.
As for Harris, she is blaming her anemic approval ratings on familiar Democratic talking points: Her sex and skin color.
She has told confidants that if she were white and male that the media coverage of her would be more kind, The New York Times reported:
Faced with declining approval ratings, a series of staff departures and a drumbeat of criticism from Republicans and the conservative news media, she has turned to powerful confidantes, including Hillary Clinton, to help plot a path forward.
Ms. Harris has privately told her allies that the news coverage of her would be different if she were any of her 48 predecessors, whom she has described as all white and male. (Charles Curtis, who served as vice president under Hoover, spoke proudly of his Native American ancestry.) She also has confided in them about the difficulties she is facing with the intractable issues in her portfolio, such as voting rights and the root causes of migration. The White House has pushed back against scathing criticism on both fronts, for what activists say is a lack of attention.
Hillary weighed in too, with her own ‘sexism’ take (and never mind that as vice president, Harris has made it farther than Clinton has up the political food chain).
“There is a double standard; it’s sadly alive and well,” she said. “A lot of what is being used to judge her, just like it was to judge me, or the women who ran in 2020, or everybody else, is really colored by that.”
