Gingrich: Trump needs to 'quit stepping on himself'

The window for President Donald Trump to be a “remarkably great president” remains open, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday morning, but to fit through it, Trump has to “quit stepping on himself” with rhetoric that distracts from his agenda.

As an example, Gingrich pointed to last week’s impromptu Trump Tower news conference, an event billed as remarks from the president about infrastructure reforms that quickly devolved into Trump suggesting that there had been “very fine people” on both sides of deadly clashes at a white supremacist rally this month in Charlottesville, Virginia.


“The last thing he’s got to do, and I'm being very candid here, is he’s got to quit stepping on himself. He had a very good infrastructure press conference the other day, and then he stepped on it, blew it, guaranteed that it wouldn't get covered,” Gingrich told Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” Monday morning. “that's like a quarterback who goes out and throws the ball down to the other side and fumbles on the first play of every possession.”

The former speaker, a top surrogate for Trump’s campaign who remains in contact with the president, said rhetorical discipline is one of the steps Trump must take to repair his relationships with Republican lawmakers, some of which have become fractured after months of so far fruitless legislative battles, and refocus on pursuing his agenda.

When it comes to Capitol Hill, Trump could benefit from a mental shift, Gingrich said, away from thought processes that dominate an individual sport like golf, a favorite of the president’s, to a more team-oriented approach. The president must create a “team Trump” of lawmakers, Gingrich said, if he’s going to push forward on his policy goals.

One step Trump has already taken, Gingrich said, was the appointment of John Kelly to be White House chief of staff. Kelly, the former speaker said, has consolidated his ability to “run an organized, disciplined, structured White House,” something Trump “has needed very badly.”

“He's got to be more disciplined, and he's got to work as part of a team. And then, I think generally, he could end up being a remarkably great president,” Gingrich said. “But he's got to make a couple of midcourse corrections.”