President-elect Donald Trump's selection process for his secretary of state is like his reality television show "The Apprentice," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday.

In an interview on CBS News' "Face The Nation," Gingrich, who has publicly opposed former Trump critic Mitt Romney for the nation's top diplomat, declared, "Trump is his own leader in important policy, and he's looking for somebody to be his secretary of state's, not the State department's."

"What I'm impressed with is the patient way he's gone about this," Gingrich said. "He didn't jump in for Romney. He didn't jump in against him. He hasn't jumped in for [Rudy] Giuliani."

Gingrich added "I have gotten no blowback from anybody, including [Trump's chief of staff Reince] Priebus" about opposition to Romney for the position.

"There's a sense of you're allowed to have your own opinion," Gingrich explained of the process. "This is like 'The Apprentice.' When you get to the decision, let's all be on the same team, but until that opinion is made, let's have an opinion."

Gingrich also dismissed criticism of Trump not attending daily intel briefings as he prepares for his inauguration.

"You have to be realistic," he said. "I have no idea what the current intelligence briefings are like and I'm not denigrating them, but if you took the total number of foreign leaders that President-elect Trump has talked to in the last couple weeks, he's clearly engaged in the world."

"He's clearly getting advice from a wide range of leaders, from [Shinzo Abe] in Japan, from [Angela] Merkel," he continued. "At the same time, he's got several people he trusts. I'm assuming that [national security adviser Michael] Flynn and [deputy national security adviser K.T. ] McFarland are, in fact, taking the briefings, and if they see something they think he needs to know, they come tell him."

Asked which was more important, something told to Trump in person, or something on television, Gingrich responded: "Something you tell him on TV. On occasion it helps to say that on TV. "

"People walk up to us routinely and say, 'I don't want Mitt.' Well, those people deserve to know there is a substantial positive part of the Trump operation that hears their concerns… they deserve to know there are people hearing them."