Conservative pundit Newt Gingrich was grilled by co-hosts of “The View” this week after rushing to President Donald Trump‘s defense amid fallout over his recent comment on “lynching.”
Trump, 73, drew backlash Tuesday after comparing the impeachment proceedings against him to a lynching, tweeting: “All Republicans must remember what they’re witnessing here — a lynching. But we will WIN!”
“View” co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin swiftly denounced the president’s language, however, their right-wing guest wasn’t nearly as critical. Gingrich acknowledged that Trump’s remark was “very politically incorrect,” but argued the president was right to use it because “he’s really deeply frustrated.”
“Look, put yourself in Trump’s shoes,” he began. “You got beaten up for over two years with the Mueller [investigation]. You start to relax. Then, alll of a sudden there is this whole new wave of things, and I think part of what you have is a guy here who’s just really deeply frustrated that no matter where he turns, you know, the fight keeps going on.”
Gingrich noted that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who’s Black, had used the same language to describe the sexual harassment allegations that threatened to derail his confirmation in 1991.
Hostin criticized the comparison, and said both men were wrong to use the term.
“You mentioned Clarence Thomas,” she said to Gingrich. “By my last count, he’s a black man using it. I don’t think he should’ve used it there either.”
The former Georgia congressman and speaker of the house responded by arguing that most early American films “were about lynching white people,” therefore the practice “isn’t an automatically, only Black experience.”
“You know it may not be totally a black experience but we’re kind of the only folks that didn’t come out from under the experience that was put on us, as you well know,” Goldberg chimed in. “Italian folks have, you know, were allowed and welcomed to work in ways that we weren’t.”
Hostin argued that lynchings were “a uniquely black experience” in the U.S. and criticized Trump for using such “racially charged language.”
According to a 2015 report by the Equal Justice Initiative, nearly 4,000 African-American men, women and children were lynched across the Souths between 1877 and 1950 — at least 800 more lynchings of Black American than had been previously reported.
Further driving home her point on the issue, Goldberg argued that the Trump impeachment proceedings were about accountability, not public bashing.
“Listen, man, you’re not being lynched here. You’re being held to the standard that we hold — that we’re supposed to be holding every president to,” she said, drawing applause from the audience.
When asked his opinion on Trump’s choice of words, Gingrich grew flustered and unsuccessfully tried to sidestep the question.
“I think (the president) often uses words more clumsily more often than he should,” he replied, stammering. “I’ve been comfortable calling it a witch hunt and a kangaroo court, and things like that. I haven’t gone up to that next level.”
Watch more in the clip below.
