Gingrich in Feb.: Trump will lose big if he doesn’t change

Newt Gingrich is among the finalists to be Donald Trump’s running mate, but earlier this year, the former Speaker said Trump would lose big unless he changed his presidential campaign.

ProPublica on Thursday published a February speech Gingrich gave to the Republican State Leadership Committee in Washington.

{mosads}In it, Gingrich said that unless Trump worked to become more like President Ronald Reagan than conservative firebrand Barry Goldwater, he would lose big.

“If he and his team understand this,” Gingrich said, “I suspect they will evolve rapidly.”

Gingrich called Trump “not a guy who’s shallow or simple, but he is a guy who knows an immense amount about marketing, which is why he talks at a fourth-grade level. He talks at the lowest level of any candidate in either party, not because he’s stupid.”

“He does it because he knows if you talk at a fourth-grade level, everybody can understand you,” Gingrich, a former Speaker and onetime White House contender himself, continued. “How we make the transition from, you know, language for fourth graders to real policy, I don’t know.”

Gingrich has been a strong supporter of Trump in recent months and appears to be one of three finalists to be Trump’s vice president, along with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

But in February, he expressed concern about whether Trump could win the general election and questioned how Trump would do as president.

“I do not believe anybody including Trump can tell you what a Trump presidency would be like,” Gingrich said.

He said the billionaire businessman’s approach was like “some weird combination of the Kardashians.” He also said the candidate is not a conservative, but is instead an “American nationalist.”

During the speech, Gingrich did commend Trump’s political skills. He called him the “grizzly bear in the room” and said he “has found a formula worthy of study.”

“I operate on the premise that when people are doing something really smart, even if I don’t like it or I don’t understand it, it’s my job to figure them out, not their job to figure me out,” Gingrich said.