Newt Gingrich offered a strikingly political response when asked Thursday at a Washington Post event what President Trump, whom the former House speaker has backed and by whom he was reportedly considered as a running mate in 2016, might have to fear if either chamber of Congress flips to Democratic control after the midterms.

Asked specifically about, for example, a Democrat-led House committee’s subpoenaing Trump’s tax returns — traditionally made public by presidential candidates to reassure voters that no financial entanglements would divide an elected official’s loyalties or otherwise compromise him or her — Gingrich replied in a matter-of-fact manner that the effort would end in the lap of the Supreme Court, adding: