Gingrich: Bushes are behaving 'childishly' The former House speaker also sounded off on America's deepening racial fissures.

Passed over for the job of joining the Republican presidential ticket as Donald Trump’s running mate, Newt Gingrich showed Monday that his willingness to serve as an attack dog has not diminished.

In a pair of morning show interviews Monday on ABC and MSNBC, respectively, the former House speaker showed no hesitation in sharing his opinions on, among other topics, President Barack Obama, race in America, the Bush family and Trump’s campaign.


Gingrich dismissed the notion that the lack of prominent Republicans at this week’s national convention in Cleveland represented some larger trouble within the GOP. He attacked 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, a vocal opponent of Trump’s, as a bandwagon jumper whose support for the party “lasted as long as we were supporting him.” The former speaker had even stronger words for the Bush family, none of whom will be in Cleveland this week.

“The reason people nominated Donald Trump is they weren't happy, and frankly the Bushes are behaving, I think, childishly,” Gingrich said in an interview from the convention floor with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

“Childishly?” Stephanopoulos replied.

“Childishly. I mean, Jeb lost,” Gingrich said. “You know, Get over it. I mean, the fact is, this Republican Party has been awfully good to the Bushes.”

In that same interview, Gingrich said Trump had to “behave like you’re qualified” and need have to prove to voters that he is “at least an adequate risk.” The Republican Party must leave Cleveland with “relative unity,” a goal the former speaker said was aided by Trump’s decision to pick Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate.

“If your job was to reassure the Republican Party and bring back in the regular Republicans, Mike Pence will do a much better job than I would have,” Gingrich said.

Later Monday morning, in an interview on MSNBC's “Morning Joe,” Gigrich dove into the issue of race. The former speaker said that despite seven and a half years of a black president and black attorneys general, race relations in the U.S. are at a low point in recent history. Gingrich said, "We’ve got to better understand the experience of being black in America,” but also criticized Obama’s support for law enforcement, which the former speaker said came too late.

“Seven and a half years into his presidency, he began to realize, now that we had two massacres of policemen, that maybe as president of the United States and leader of law and order in America he should say something on behalf of law and order,” Gingrich said. “I mean, that’s fairly pathetic.”

Offering solutions to black America, Gingrich said, should play a central role in Trump’s campaign. Democratic solutions in inner cities like Chicago, Baltimore and Detroit haven’t worked, the former speaker said, offering the Republican ticket a chance to win over new voters who Gingrich said are understandably frustrated.

“Let’s be clear. The system doesn’t work in Baltimore. It doesn’t work in Detroit. It doesn’t work in South Side Chicago,” Gingrich said. “And that means you have to have systemic change. The teachers’ union oppose it, the public employee unions oppose it, the liberals oppose it and the result is you don’t get any change.”

“I’m trying to get Trump and Pence to do this very aggressively,” he continued. “We, the Republicans, have to have the guts to go in the middle of South Side Chicago, to go in the middle of Baltimore, to go in the middle of Newark and offer better solutions, which Paul Ryan at least has seriously worked on, and give people a sense that there's hope.”