loading . . . Gingrich: Trump Has A Real Shot At Becoming Number 3 In The Pantheon Of American Presidents Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich discusses the scale of change the Trump administration is pulling off on FOX News Channel's "Jesse Watters Primetime."
JESSE WATTERS, HOST: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is here.
All right, so he's not there at Washington-Lincoln level yet. Where is he in the Newt Gingrich presidential historian scheme of things?
NEWT GINGRICH, FOX NEWS CHANNEL POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, I think he's at least tied with Roosevelt -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt who won four presidential elections, led America during World War II and led us through The Great Depression, so considering that Trump really in the second term, he hasn't even gotten a full year under his belt and he's already in that league and I think frankly, give him another year or two and he will rank third.
I mean, nobody is going to replace Washington, he created the country, and nobody is going to replace Lincoln, he won a Civil War and sustained the country, so they are just out of reach.
Now, I like President Trump, I think he's historic, I think it is astonishing what he achieved in the Middle East. I look forward to his next great successes. But both as a historian and just as a friend, I'm not going to tell him something that I don't think is true.
I think he has a real shot at becoming number 3 in the Pantheon of American Presidents, but I don't think there's any likelihood that he will in any way replace either Lincoln or Washington just because historically the moment they were in was so decisive in shaping us as a country and hopefully we are not ever going to be in that kind of a moment in the near future.
WATTERS: Wow! And you would put him ahead of Reagan, that means.
GINGRICH: And look, I love Ronald Reagan, I campaigned with him, I served in Congress eight years when he was President. He defeated the Soviet Empire. He is certainly I think the second greatest President in the modern era after Trump.
You look at the scale of change that Trump is pulling off both at home and abroad and it's without parallel. Reagan was a great, great man and he did things that really profoundly reshaped America. Everything we did when I was Speaker was standing on Reagan's shoulders and implementing Reagan's ideas.
But in terms of sheer decisive energy and forcing things to change, I've never seen anything like Trump. As I said, other than Washington or Reagan -- Washington and Lincoln, I can't imagine anybody else who has had the extraordinary effectiveness that Trump has had. And remember, we are still in the first year of his second term.
Who knows what the next three years are going to be like.
WATTERS: Yes, I mean, we could still take Greenland, so there's a lot of runway left, Speaker.
The Democrats though, I don't think history will look too kindly on them and their behavior as of late. How would you analyze their performance?
GINGRICH: Well, I don't think there's any such thing as the Democrats. I think you have groups of left-wing coocoos, you have a handful of groups of rational people. You have -- and remember you have in Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, House and Senate leaders, they live 1.1 miles apart, a $15.00 Uber drive apart in Brooklyn. A city which is about to elect Mamdani as a big government socialist with weird values. That's their world.
There's a giant country beyond Brooklyn and they have no clue what's happening in the country. There is a new poll out in Minnesota for example that shows that the Republican nominee unnamed is within three or four points of beating any Democrat who runs. It's Minnesota. And we are seeing this shift all across the country as people, frankly partly they like Trump but even more powerfully they really are getting sick of the Democrats being a party of weirdness and hostility.
You know, a guy runs for Attorney General in Virginia who desired the death of the Republican Speaker and talked positively about the death of his children. That is a party which is sick and Spanberger, the candidate for governor can't even repudiate him.
So I think what you have is a sense of these people are really increasingly crazy and increasingly incompetent and that it is shifting people towards the Republican Party, I think in a very big way.
WATTERS: Well, you think this is crazy, wait until you see the rest of the show, Speaker. Enjoy yourself, I know Trump enjoyed your presence at The White House. Did he ask you about the tile? Did you weigh in on which tile you like?
GINGRICH: We did not get into it. We got into other stuff. And Calista and I were glad to be there, but as always, there's a certain circus effect if you will when the President is on a roll.
WATTERS: Yes. Always exciting. Thank you so much, good to see you. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/10/16/gingrich_trump_has_a_real_shot_at_becoming_number_3_in_the_pantheon_of_american_presidents.html
