Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich is “taking Nancy Reagan’s comments out of context” when claiming that he is “the legitimate heir to the Reagan movement,” Andrea Mitchell reported today on her MSNBC program. According to sources close to the former first lady, Mrs. Reagan’s statements were in regard to the new Republican majority that had taken over Congress at the time, not only then-Speaker Gingrich as an individual. Mitchell also reported that Mrs. Reagan’s 1995 comments were written for her by the host organization. A transcript of the segment is available below, as well as a link to the embeddable clip. If used, kindly credit MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”
Clip: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/46192457#46192457
[TRANSCRIPT]
ANDREA MITCHELL, MSNBC HOST: Newt Gingrich’s campaign, meanwhile today, with Ronald Reagan's son, Michael, a conservative radio talk show host from California. This is all part of Gingrich’s effort to wrap himself in the Reagan mantle. He also repeatedly claims that Nancy Reagan anointed him as the heir to her husband’s legacy. Let’s watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWT GINGRICH, GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In 1995, Nancy Reagan at the Goldwater Institute was very generous. And she said just as Barry gave the torch to Ronny, Ronny has passed on the torch to Newt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MITCHELL: In fact, people close to Nancy Reagan tell me that Gingrich is taking Nancy Reagan's comments out of context. As you’ll see here, this is the original tape, what he was referring to just then. And this is Nancy Reagan back in 1995. She was really talking about Newt and the entire Republican Congress. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY REAGAN, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century. Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronny. And in turn Ronny turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MITCHELL: Al Hunt is the executive editor of Bloomberg News. Al, this in fact, this speech that she gave, I'm told was written for her by the host at the Goldwater Organization and was really speaking about the Congress, not just Newt Gingrich. And you have done a lot of reporting. You’ve talked to Lou Cannon, the best of the Reagan biographers in your column on Bloomberg. And the fact is this is not the relationship that existed between Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich.
AL HUNT, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Andrea, the former speaker makes two claims. First of all that he was a key figure in the Reagan revolution of the 1980s. On that claim, as you say, Lou Cannon, the biographer, he covered Reagan for the entire time. He said that Gingrich had nothing to do with the Reagan revolution. He was a backbencher. Lou’s not even sure Reagan knew who Gingrich was. So, that claim is just not – is just patently false.
The other claim he makes is that he’s the inheritor. He really is the Reagan of today, if you will. One can look at their policies and decide one way or the other. But when it comes to persona, approach, view of politics, they could not be more different. Reagan was a can-do optimist, sunny, he really would charm people. Gingrich's great appeal to many is that he can attack Democrats better than anybody.
So, I think they are quite different people. And certainly at a minimum, the speakers claims -- or his latter-day Reaganism are exaggerated.
MITCHELL: Now, one other point, Al, is that right now, in Florida, trying to appeal to evangelicals, Newt Gingrich is taking a very hard line on stem cell research. It's not the line he took back in the 2001, when he acknowledged that some kind of cells that had been perhaps excess cells from invitro fertilization could be used. Now, he’s taking a much, much harder line.
And this of course is Nancy Reagan's signature issue, the issue that inspired her coming out of her husband’s Alzheimer’s treatment to really go out and challenge some of her husband's fellow conservatives, social conservatives on this issue.
This is Gingrich on Saturday in Winter Park at the Baptist Church speaking about stem cell research.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GINGRICH: I would eliminate all funding for any stem cell research which came from the killing of life.
(APPLAUSE)
GINGRICH: This was never an argument about science. This was the use of science to justify desensitizing the society to killing babies.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MITCHELL: I think that is a more modern-day, a more contemporary example of where the current Newt Gingrich and Nancy Reagan certainly differ profoundly on an issue.
One other point you made in your interview in Lou Cannon, Al, is that Jack Kemp was the member of Congress who inspired and personified – the late Jack Kemp -- personified the happy optimism and that whole aspect of the Reagan legacy.
HUNT: Yes, he was, and he had a huge influence on Reagan on supply-side economics, too, Andrea. Also, going back to that clip you just played. It is a variance – not only even with Nancy Reagan. It’s a variance with what Newt Gingrich talked about earlier at a different study (ph) in the campaign about the need for brain research, if we could cure Alzheimer’s, what it would need for the economy.
Most scientists would emphatically disagree with that statement he just made because they think stem cell research is one of the ways that we have a shot at finding a cure for things like Alzheimer’s.
MITCHELL: Al Hunt, thanks so much for your column and your reporting on all of this.
END
