"I think for the president, the next president to say, you know, we're going to have systematically rebuild our nuclear capability is exactly right," Newt Gingrich said. | Getty Gingrich endorses Trump's nuclear arms buildup

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday supported President-elect Donald Trump's remarks about a buildup of nuclear weapons, saying the strategy "is exactly right."

Speaking to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," Gingrich said Trump's statements reflected the reality of a world where Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have attempted to build up their capabilities in recent years.


"I think for the president, the next president to say, you know, we're going to have systematically rebuild our nuclear capability is exactly right," Gingrich said.

"We have to candidly overmatch," added Gingrich, who was one of Trump's most vocal surrogates during the campaign.

On Thursday, Trump had tweeted: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes," then followed that by saying in an interview Friday: "Let it be an arms race ... we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all."

His remarks were seen as an attempt to reset American policy after decades of combating the spread of nuclear weapons, as well as treaties that reduced the world's existing supply, such as the landmark agreement reached between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.

In the interview Sunday, Wallace wondered whether Trump talking about an arms race while courting Vladimir Putin might send contradictory signals about how he viewed the Russian leader — as ally or enemy.

"I think right now he sees Putin as potentially either or both," Gingrich said. "This has been true, by the way, all through the tension with Putin."

Wallace also asked Gingrich if he thought that making foreign policy pronouncements on Twitter was a good thing for a president-elect to be doing.

"We might as well get used to it," Gingrich said. "This is who he is, this is how he's going to operate, whether it's brilliant or stupid. He beat 16 rivals, then he beats Hillary Clinton and he beat the elite media. He ain't giving it up."

When Wallace asked whether he thought it was "brilliant or stupid," Gingrich answered that it was "brilliant."

Gingrich said he thought Trump would elevate the United States in the world after what he characterized as an era of weakness under President Barack Obama. Gingrich went on to say he thought much of what Obama did in office during his eight years would end up being undone.

"His legacy is like one of those dolls that, as the air comes out of it, shrinks and shrinks and shrinks," Gingrich said of Obama.