had tended to in some ways be destructive. >> reporte >> newt gingrich for the hour. the piers morgan interview starts now. good evening. the eyes of the political world are on south carolina, the republican primary is just days away and the candidates are swarming all over the state. but here's something you may not know about one of them, newt gingrich. the man has an absolute passion for animals and zoos. so he invited us here to south carolina's roper mountain science center. it's dog eat dog out on that campaign trail, but all the while, things in here seem pretty peaceful to me so far, with the exception, possibly, of newt gingrich. why here? >> it's fun. it's interesting. it gets you back to nature. it reminds you of the world that we live in and of the fact that life is bigger than us. >> last time i talked to you, i said, you must be in the most memorable moment of your life. and you actually, instinctively, cited being in the african bush and seeing the wild animals at play. so it wasn't entirely surprising to me that you chose this kind of location. but i walked around earlier, and it seemed to be a very appropriate venue, in the sense that right behind you is a large preying mantis, which you just informed me is most predatory animal on earth. >> you could think of that as a super pac. >> whose super pac? >> any super pac. >> yours or mitt romney's? >> any super pac. the nature of those organizations is they have no responsibilities, no connection to any kind of pattern of reasonable politics, and it's a model i hope we can get beyond, but we won't this year. >> now, the last time i spoke to you, we talked about super pacs and you were pretty scathing about the super pacs that mitt romney was using, the amount of money he was spending. clearly implying these were all his ex-staffers, ex-friends and so on, and you were trying very hard, and laudably, to rise above this and be nice guy newt. clearly, that didn't work very well. the halo, may i suggest, has slightly slipped, and your own super pac super pac, $3.5 million worth, is about to be unleashed in south carolina, presumably, you would conceive now that you have changed position on this? >> well, i would concede that every effort i made to stay positive and every effort i made to talk romney out of doing this failed. that you can't, you know, you can't laterally disarm unless you want to get out of the race. and since this is the objective reality, we have no choice. so we have to match -- in some way, we have to have effective advertising that matches their advertising. where literally, no matter howed good your ideas are, no matter how big your crowds are, the weight of television and radio and direct mailing in iowa is un -- you know, 45% of all the ads. >> you can blow him to pieces. what your friends and supporters found surprising was that you allowed yourself to get in that position in the first place. i want to read you some of the things that you have said before. they're quite interesting, about how your position on this has changed. you once said, one of the great problems we have in the republican party is we don't encourage you to be nasty. we encourage you to be neat, obedie obedient, loyal, and faithful, and all those boy scout words, which would be great around the campfire, but are lousy in politics. so where does saint newt come from? >> it's not a question of being saint newt. it's a question of being where are you prepared to fight? i think when we're up against obama this fall, we're going to have no choice. they're raising $1 billion. they clearly intend to run a continuous, unending negative campaign. and you're going to have to be able to somehow match that, or you won't be in the same business. >> with hindsight, would you have played it differently in iowa? if you'd known what was coming? >> well, probably i would have reacted earlier to the attack ads, especially the ones that were untrue. and i might well have gone to contrast with governor romney's record in massachusetts much earlier. but i, you know, this was the beginning of a long process, and frankly, i wanted to run the experiment. i wanted to see, if you stayed totally positive, if you were relentlessly positive, what would happen? well, it turned out you could come in with 14 or 15%, you could be forth, but remember, i started at a pretty strong first in early december, so it's pretty clear that the relentless negative ads do have an effect. >> two very famous businessmen have tweeted about you today. rupert murdoch said, "can't blame newt g. too much. he was carpet bombed with negatives by romney, brilliant visionary, just too much baggage and erratic." what's your response to that? >> i like the "brilliant visionary" part. and i like the fact that he recognizes that the context in which we're responding is, in fact, in the context of carpet bombing by romney. and i think that sets for a different tone. people give you permission to behave differently, because it's now sunk in, you know, even in the news media, there's a pretty broad acceptance that i took all the hits for three solid weeks and patiently tried to figure out if there was a way to stay totally positive. so i think there's a much higher tolerance, now, for me to bring up romney's pro-abortion record or romney's tax increase record, or to the disagree to which romney governed in massachusetts with liberal judges. so i think you can now draw a contrast with a sense that that's fair, given the context of all the negative ads. >> in answer to the too much baggage and the erratic allegations, a bit of truth in both, i would say, wouldn't you? >> i think that's part of what i have to overcome, and i think we've been pretty successfully overcoming it. again, prior to the negative ads, when it was a question of good ideas, good solutions, positive thinking, we were literally pulling away. and gallop and others were reporting an increasingly wide gap, which is, i think, why the romney pick panicked and went to an all-out negative attack. but the truth is, today, as "the wall street journal" pointed out, i have the best jobs plan and his, according to the "wall street journal" is so timid, it resembles obama. now, that's a pretty big gap in terms of positive ideas. >> jack welch said today, the critics were right, newt really say and do anything to try to win. such a sad flaw in an otherwise smart guy. he's for romney. >> famous people for romney line up, who will say anything, let me use jack welch's language. they'll say anything in order to help get romney elected. i mean, what's new? the fact is, what i have said has consistently been conservative. and the only critique the people are upset about is raising questions about a business record which romney has touted as the base of his presidential campaign. >> here's the potential flaw in the new strategy of going after him about bain. nobody really knows the answer to whether he created more jobs by doing what he did at bain, by taking over troubled companies and in most cases, making them more successful and selling them on, without a cost, but a human toll cost. i think a few went bankrupt, and the argument goes from their side. they probably would have done anyway. did he create more jobs or did he wreck more jobs? do you know the answer? >> the point is, if a guy is running for president -- he has two major credentials, his record for governor, that he doesn't want to talk about, because he was much more liberal as governor than the republican primary will ever endorse, and his record in business, which he doesn't want to talk about. now, at what point are you allowed to say, running on commercials alone isn't enough? >> but if he manages to establish that his record at bain was such that he created more jobs than he effectively lost, you could argue that's exactly what is needed in america right now, in the sense that you're going to have to cut, aren't you? >> but he makes that assertion anyway. but he doesn't prove it. he just asserts it. >> but have you proven the opposite? >> i just raised the question? >> have you proven he was a force for negative? >> i think we've certainly raised the question. it's not about capitalism or free enterprise, it's about values, character, and judgment. and even he said, i think it was in 2007, that he looks back at some things he'd do differently now. the question is, in terms of values, character, and judgment, were those the right decisions in those circumstances? and i've said up-front, i think he's going to sooner or later have to do a press conference and walk people through three or four of the most troubling cases. and anybody who thinks he's going to be able to get by obama and axelrod this fall without explaining this is kidding themselves. >> rick perry told me last night that in a way, you guys are doing him a favor, because you're having the debate in the open now before the democrats have to get into it. >> the the last thing you want is to nominate somebody who collapses in september because they can't answer the questions. i mean, so you had better answer, you know, people want to attack me for my past, that's fine. i either will answer it and be ready to be the nominee or i won't. romney ought to have to meet the same test. >> he's been very scathing, through these super pacs, and also himself, pretty personal, too, against you. it got pretty nasty, pretty quickly. and only now are you responding. what do you actually think of him, personally, as a man? >> i don't. >> you have no view? >> no, i have no view. >> do you like him? >> he is a competitor. he's somebody who i think was unnecessarily negative and who ran -- who knows that some of the things he ran were not true. but that's his decision. that's how he wants to play the game. >> you called him a liar last week. >> no, i responded to somebody who asked me that. >> same thing. >> i think -- well, if you watch sunday's debate, there's this marvelous paragraph where romney begins by saying, "i have never seen any of the ads" -- >> and then starts talking about them. >> and than he outlines one of the ads perfectly. just watch the paragraph and you decide. >> do you still stand by the fact he's a liar? about you? >> i still stand by the fact that he is not truthful. and i stand by the fact that he doesn't want to be candid about his record as governor. and i stand by the fact that he doesn't want to be candid about some of these ads. and all i ask you to do is watch -- don't ask me. watch him. >> you said that character is very important for whoever wins this nomination. yet you won't tell me what you think of mitt romney. what do you think of his character? >> i don't have an obligation to answer any of that. >> uh but his character? >> i'm not going to sit here and play psychotherapy. >> i don't mean to. but if character is a category for this nominee, isn't it perfectly acceptable to ask his competitors about his character? >> it should be quite clear that i believe that he ought to be candid about being a moderate, he ought to be candid about the fact that he was consistently pro-choice, not pro-life, as governor. he has tax-paid abortions. he has planned parenthood written into romney care by name. he appointed pro-abortion judges. his government actually helped build an abortion clinic after he supposedly converted. so i think you could go through a whole series of things and say, there's a big gap between the romney commercial and the romney record. >> is he better for a leader, for a presidential president of the united states, to admit that they have been wrong and to change their mind about issues, or to stick subbornly by their same platform on these things, decade after decade? >> if somebody -- first of all, if you had a fairly long career, you should have changed your mind on something. i mean, there should have been something -- >> it would be strange if you hadn't, right? >> right. there should be some place where you say, i learned something new and i have a different opinion. >> be are you dubious about romney's motivation for changing his position? >> first of all, if you go to romneytaxes.com, you'll see every single tax he raised while he was governor. he would pretend he didn't raise them. as i just said to you, after he claims he was pro-life, he went through a whole series of pro-abortion steps as governor. these are facts, these aren't -- so i think you can look and decide for yourself how -- you know, he will tell that he's a conservative, he'll poi appoint liberal judges, consistently. >> could you imagine ever working for him? >> no. but why -- what does that -- he couldn't ever imagine ever working for me either. >> people become president and appoint people to key positions they don't necessarily like, but who they really respect as political operators. you would be a big catch. >> i didn't think of him as president. i thought about working for him. >> you've had to consider the unthinkable. >> you just said to me, if the president of the united states asked me to do something, would you consider? i am with jon huntsman. if the president of the united states of either party asks you to try to help on something that matters to the nation, you have the obligation of a citizen to see whether or not you can do it. because you owe it to the country, not to the personality. >> let's take a short break, come back and talk about south carolina. because many are saying that for you, newt gingrich, this is the biggest moment of your political life. maybe you don't agree. maybe you do. 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romney, although he has yet to get anywhere close to a majority, by three to one, republicans in iowa voted against him. by two to one, republicans in new hampshire voted against him. nonetheless, he can claim he won both, even if one was by eight votes. if he wins here, he has enormous momentum towards the momentum. >> unstoppable, do you think? >> well, in this day and age, i don't know if anything's unstoppable. but he would have enormous momentum. >> if he won by more than 10%. >> i think if he wins by one point, he'll go into south carolina ten latdays later with enormous momentum. >> what would be a good result for you outside of winning? can there be a good result wm. >> i think this comes down to in order for the nomination process to go to a conservative, i have to beat romney on the 21st. and i think -- and that's a decision south carolinians, i think, are going to face very seriously. because the more they learn his record, the more they realize, for example, he's pro-gun control. >> if you don't win, given you've set that parameter, to you drop out? >> i don't know. i don't want to pre-judge anything. >> if it's that crucial? >> first of all, i think i'm going to win. i think the events we've had so far in our very first day here have been remarkable. >> but i don't know that a politician likes to play hypotheticals -- >> so i'm not going to play hypotheticals. you can ask 23 different ways, i'm not answering. my goal is to win on the 21st. and i think if we win on the 21st, we go to florida, it is a brand-new game. and at that point, romney's got to confront that when you get outside of -- remember, new hampshire is his third best state after utah and massachusetts. so if he only gets 37% in his third best state, and he can't win here, then i think wyou're n a very different nomination process. this is going to be armageddon. they will come in here with everything they've got, everybody surrogate, every ad, everybody negative attack. at the same time, we're going to be basically drawing a shopper contrast between a georgia reagan conservative and a massachusetts moderate who's pro-gun control, pro-choice, pro-tax increase, pro-liberal judge. and the voters of south carolina will have to decide. >> when it comes to armageddon, that's a good way of putting it, he has a better machinery. do you regret the fact that your machinery had such a cataclysmic start? it disappeared in the summer. you were saying yourself, you did interviews where you said, basically you're dead, what about the others. but you made this incredible comeback. but what you still don't have because of the time it takes to amass this is proper machinery. >> and because of money. romney ran for five years. he is a money machine. he's raised millions on wall street. is there is that his fault or just good politics? >> i'm not saying it's his fault or not his fault. i'm saying to try to match him at what he does best, his to raise money, would have been a dead loser. i radio to match him at what i do best, new solutions. new ability to communicate with people. and we've actually had a pretty interesting campaign so far. >> is this the biggest weak of your life, politically? >> yeah, i think, politically, well, it's the most decisive week. this is the week where everything culminates and we either convince south carolinians to voter for a conservative and unify them around me or, you know, you see romney probably becoming the nominee. >> very quickly, what do you think of the other competitors? is rick santorum, he had the santorum surge, took a bit of a hit in new hampshire, not necessarily surprisingly, is it over for him, or do you think you can see him to get traction? >> everybody has a chance to come and play. and we'll find out over the next ten days. you know, governor perry is here. i don't know if governor huntsman is going to compete or not. >> are you surprised governor perry is still going? >> that's his decision. he's a smart guy, a good governor of texas. he has the resources and if he wants to stay, he can. i think the concern will be, how do we communicate to south carolinians that they had better pick one conservative, in which case will almost certainly be me, if they want to beat romney? any vote that goes to anybody else will be a vote that helps romney win. >> at what point does the party have to rally, as you say, behind this? have we reached this point yet? >> the party never has to rally. >> doesn't it collectively say, we're going to have these two duke it out. does it help to have endless candidates carry on? >> but it's not the party's function. the party doesn't have any authority to do that. obama and hillary went all the way to early june. and nobody thought that they could step in and say, oh, gee, let's not do this. the american political process is the most wide open process on the plant. and it attracts very, very strong personalities. and they get to see what they can do. and it's really a marvelous process. for sorting out who's capable of enduring the presidency. >> let's take another break. when we come back, i want to get personal with you. i want to take you back to when you were 14 years old and your stepfather, bob, took you to the old battlefields in france and you had some extraordinary sights that you saw, that i think shaped, in many ways, the way that you became as an adult. 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and that's pretty cool. ♪ the calcium they take because they don't take it with food. switch to citracal maximum plus d. it's the only calcium supplement that can be taken with or without food. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's all about absorption. that'will be giving awayommends passafree copiesmum. of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. back with my special guest, newt gingrich. mr. speaker, i want to talk to you about a time in your life, you were 14 years old, and your stepfather, bob, who is a military man, a tough man in many ways, he took you to the battle fields of france, and as you walked through the war graves and got a sense of just the scale of what had happened, you also had this very disturbing moment when you went down to some recess, some cellar, and there were all these -- >> well, it's a glassed in basement-like area that had the bones of 100,000 people who'd been blown apart in the fields and left to rot. the battle lasted for nine months. and so, literally, back in that era, they went out after the war and gathered up all these bones, german and french bones, out and them all in this one extraordinary memorial. we were staying with a friend of my father's who had been drafted in 1941 and sent to the philippines, served in the baton death march and spent 3 1/2 years in a japanese prison camp. so the combination of seeing the battle field of 600,000 men died in a nine-month period in this battle and listening to him talk about the stories of tweet. and then a few weeks later, the french paratroopers killed the fourth french republican and brought back general de gall. that drove home this stuff is all real. >> how did it shape you as a president in the sense that you're going to face, if you become president moments where you have to the decide, do you take your country to war? it's going to happen to you. what did that tell you about warfare. i know you're a military historian in many ways. >> it's deeper than going to war. it's the question of, how can you make the historically right decisions to give your children and grandchildren a prosperous, safe, free country. i mean, it may be avoiding going to war, because you used the right buildup or the right diplomacy, because you have foresight. it's also, how do you operate in a principled manner? because you can't just ad hoc all these different decisions. you have to have some underlying set of principles that enable you to say, you know, for america to remain a great nation, for america to remain an acceptable nation, these are things we have to focus on. and you have to set priorities. and where possible, you have to get ahead of the problems. one of the amazing things about both eisenhower and reagan was that they were able to sort of see around the corner. so they could take steps that achieved a great deal at minimum risk. and both of them tended to avoid risk. >> many say the iraq war was fought under a completely false premise. that saddam hussein was on to weapons of mass destruction, turns out he wasn't at all. and therefore this was just a pointless war. that ended up costing a lot of lives, a lot of money, and would have been much better off not involving american troops in the way that it did. given what you experienced on those battle fields, given what you saw, if you'd been the commander in chief, with that decision about iraq, would you have taken that decision? >> well, there were two decisions. there was the decision to go in and then there was the decision to stay. i mean, you can look back in hindsight and say a lot of things. every intelligence service in the world believes saddam was dangerous. and given what they thought was a very real danger of saddam getting -- >> but if you're president in a year's time, which you may be, and you're faced with the same compelling evidence about the new leader in north korea, for example, what would you do ? are you going to accept that level of intelligence again? >> with hindsight or without hindsight. >> i'm talking about with foresight. >> if someone walks in and says, the iranians are two weeks away from using a nuclear weapon and we have reason to believe that ahmadinejad would use it. i think that no american president, i can't say this about obama, but even obama, would not tolerate an iranian nuclear weapon. >> when would you do in that circumstance? >> by then you've been pushed into a corner that only military action is capable. the reason i site reagan and eisenhower, you want to shape the eventually by taking steps now that alter the iranian regime nonmilitarily. i would say the same thing in north korea. our ultimate goal is to get past the dictator. >> but america can't look forward to have another conflict with iran or north korea. you're not going to be committing that number of boots on the ground again. >> first of all, i don't think there's any circumstances you would want to put hundreds of thousands of troops into iran. but for circumstances where you might want to go after the nuclear program. and the question becomes, this is what the real world's all about. you're suddenly faced with a choice. you're going to let ahmadinejad have nuclear weapons, you're going to take the gamble he's not going to use them. but the whole middle east is dangerous. i mean, the pakistanis have between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons. they have a government that is very badly divided. and has very substantial islamist radical elements in it. you know, we have no idea whether or not one or two or three of those weapons is going to disappear some day. we are living in a world that is vastly more dangerous than most of our elites want to deal with. and i think it's a very serious question. >> if i had said to you, give me a phrase which would sum up your kind of overview of a modern american foreign policy, what would you with say it would be? >> i would say it would be to protect the interest of america and her allies and to do it in as effective a way as possible with the minimum of force and the minimum of risk. >> we'll take another break. and let's come back and talk about the economy and bill clinton, because you and he, i had no idea about this, have the most extraordinary number of similarities in your lives. even you may not be aware of this. good evening, everyone. i'm don lemon, live at the cnn world headquarters in atlanta. as you can see, we have breaking news, and it is from the political world. a senior campaign official is telling cnn's pete hamby that jon huntsman is dropping out of the race for president. again, senior official with the huntsman campaign is telling cnn's pete hamby that jon huntsman will drop out of the race. the official says it will happen on monday. and here's something that you'll only hear on cnn, is that he is set to endorse mitt romney. jon huntsman dropping out, set to endorse mitt romney. it should happen on monday. details at the top of the hour, right here on cnn. friend. ♪ is it fast? 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[oinking] [hissing] [ding] announcer: cook foods to the right temperature using a food thermometer. 3,000 americans will die from food poisoning this year. check your steps at foodsafety.gov. he is, first, resilient, and secondly, he's always thinking. and he's got a million ideas, i mean. and some of them are good, and some of them, i think, are horrible. >> a typically honest assessment there from former president bill clinton. back with me now is my guest, former speaker of the house, presidential candidate, newt gingrich. fascinating similarities between you and the former president. this is from "time" magazine's 1995 person of the year write-up about you. "that dynamic between you and president clinton is all the more surprising given the similarities between the two men. born three years apart. each was the eldest child of a lively and worshipful mother. both tangled with a father. both wanted to testify that they each landed exactly where they always intended. both are natural teachers, verbally promiscuous, and deeply pragmatic. both sacrificed everything from their public lives, but indulged themselves in their private lives. both are over eaters who tried pot, and both own 1967 mustangs." >> that's a fairly strange collection. >> would you quibble with any of those comparisons? >> not much. i think he probably has more pure energy than i do. i mean, she's a very bright guy. but we had a little bit of graduate student relationship. where he'd sit down in a seminar and talk. i think we drove our staffs crazy, because we'd get off on ideas. and we were both leaders of ideas. we didn't just campaign to achieve power or achieve office. we actually liked getting things done. that's why you could have a conservative congressman, speaker of the house, and a liberal democrat in the white house, and actually get a lot done. because we would hold press conferences and attack each other, but then we'd meet and we'd talk and sort it out. >> why is this not possible now? >> it is. >> but it's not happening. >> well, that's because you have obama, somebody who is a radical and who doesn't know how to negotiate. remember, clinton had been governor for 12 years. so clinton understood how to deal with legislators. and he understand that under our constitution, if i didn't schedule it, it wouldn't pass, and if he didn't sign it, it wouldn't become law. so we had a deep interest in learning how to work with each other. i don't any sense that obama has either the temperament or the skills or the interest in learning how to work with john boehner. >> you have to be fair with him, he's had to deal with republicans, mainly on the tea party side, so intransigent, they've actually been quoted as saying, whatever it takes to make this guy a one-term president. we've got to get him out. >> look, we had a huge freshman class in 1994. it was the first majority in 40 years. so we had an enormous freshman class. and they had to come in and as senator lindsey graham will tell you, a lot of the stuff they did, they were too impatient and looking back, i think he knows that i was actually trying to develop a governing republicanism that had not been there for 40 years. and it was frustrating, it was hard, it was difficult. but people of goodwill should be able to figure this out. but it has to start with a willingness on the part of the president to have a conversation. and clinton reached a decisive moment about june of 1995, where all of his liberal staff said to him, you've got to the fight gingrich daevery day. you cannot cut a deal. and he said to them, if i to that, i will be a one-term president. we have got to find a way to work together. >> so is the pressure, then, is the pressure in this current, pretty self-serving and ridiculous impasse, that i've witnessed, i've been on air for about a year, and it seems like all the time washington is paralyzed. and it seems absurd to me that the world's great democracy behaves like this. you're saying to me it's mainly president obama's fault, not john boehner's, not the the m a republicans? >> i think it's the whole system. i think republicans don't quite get how to be clever. and there are things they could do to break up the impasse. and the president has no skills -- >> what should they be doing? >> if i was the republicans, i would be finding bills that fit my value. there's a bill that provides offshore gas in virginia. the republicans ought to pass it. send it to the senate. make harry reid look at two of his own members. and i would look for ways to break up the logjam. >> do people underestimate you, do you think? there are people who are now saying, it's all over again. do nay underestimate you? >> i love the capacity of washington pundits to be sort of serially wrong. they're wrong and come back and then they're wrong. they're still pundits. they're wrong and come back and they're wrong. and i think at some point, many, many years ago, meg greenfield was then the editor of "the washington post" sate, it's amazing how many people who are wrong this saturday or sunday and will be back on the air next saturday or sunday with a new prediction. >> of course! >> so i think we'll know in ten days. >> if you were in south carolina, you're thinking, should i vote for this guy, what is the biggest misconception about you, personally? >> oh, i don't know. i think what i would say to people is is that i've had a very long record as a reagan conservative, i am the only person in the race who actually has balanced the budget four times. i'm the only person in the race who's negotiated with the president to get welfare reform passed. i've twice participated in creating huge numbers of jobs with reagan in the '80s, and then as speaker. we had 11 million new jobs when i was speaker. so i think i have three abilities that none of my competitors have. first, i think i'm the person who could most likely beat obama in debate. second, i actually have ideas and solutions big enough for a country this size. and third, i've actually done it. it's not a theory. you are not sending an amateur to washington to learn how to do it. i've actually done it. >> and to those who say, you are temperamental and you blow up and that's the problem, your family, who i interviewed only this week, assured me that you've calmed down. you are a calmer newt gingrich. >> i think that's true. >> being a grandfather, they say, has mellowed you. >> i think being married to calista has been an extraordinary mellowing and relaxing experience. plus, i think at 68 as a grandfather, you just have a different natural sense of time and sense of pacing. >> take another break, and when we come back, we'll talk about three of your favorite subjects. god, america, and calista. i'm i'm right on that, right? >> you got them right. sarah, will you marry me? i think we should see other people. in fact, i'm already seeing your best friend, justin. ♪ i would have appreciated a proactive update on the status of our relationship. who do you think i am, tim? quicken loans? at quicken loans, we provide you with proactive updates on the status of your home loan. and our innovative online tools ensure that you're always in the loop. one more way quicken loans is engineered to amaze. ensure that you're always in the loop. ♪ more and more folks are trying out snapshot from progressive. a totally different way to save on car insurance. the better you drive, the more you can save. no wonder snapshot's catching on. plug into the savings you deserve with snapshot from progressive. and it hasn't been going exactly as planned. cut. cut! 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[ male announcer ] take action. take advil®. again and again, the american people have demonstrated a remarkable ability to choose wisely when faced with great challenges. >> our best leaders have reminded us that we have a moral obligation to the cause of freedom. >> that's from a documentary film "a city upon a hill," from executive producers newt and callista beginnigingrich, and n gingrich is back with me now. how important is your wife to you? >> extraordinary. i think i was very, very fortunate in finding somebody who is remarkable intelligent, very, very professional, very beautiful. a lot of fun. i mean, she got me to golf. anybody who can get me to golf, that's so far beyond my expectation. and we just enjoy being with each other. we enjoy -- i think i relax vastly more around her than any other time. >> are you as happy with callista as you've ever been with any woman in your life? >> oh, sure, totally. it's a different world. you know, a long time ago, when i was trying to rise and i was trying to do all sorts of things, i was a very driven person, and i had a very intense life, and the intensity was as much inside me as it was around me. and that i think getting to know callista really unwound a piece of me and get me to sort of go into a deferent rhythm and rhyt surrounded by just a different -- one time early on she turned to me and said i'm not going to let your bad mood affect my good mood. i stopped in my tracks and thought she captured the inner intensity i had. tended to in some ways be constructively. >> for a conservative running in a republican nomination race, you will aware that the baggage of your previous marriages and the circumstances is a stick to beat you with. do you object to that in principal? do you think the time has come to move on? >> i think people have every right to ask of any candidate virtually everything. i think i have an obligation to look them in the eye and tell them how i honestly feel. i have done things in the past that were wrong and i had to go to god for forgiveness and seek reconciliation and measure who i am today. to decide whether or not a happily married 68-year-old grandfather learned from his mistakes and is actually a very stable person capable of leading the country in a difficult time. >> you and calista are catholic. how has that changed you as a person? >> there is a power to the eucarist in the catholic tradition and a power to the community. one of the things people would say is welcome home. there is this sense of family that is vastly more fulfilling and stronger than i would ever imagine. i tell people i didn't so much decide to be catholic as i gradually by going to the basilica where she has been singing on the choir since 1996, i became catholic and one morning the decision caught up to what happened to me. >> i suppose the obvious battle ground of many battle grounds in south carolina will be done. mitt romney is a mormon and many think it's a weird religion. what do you think? >> i think romney has to be able to explain it. >> do you as a catholic find it strange? >> no, i'm not judgmental about how people go to god. i think we have traditions and different people go to god in different ways and i'm respectful. >> let's take a final break and i want to talk to you about america. the key challenge is not necessarily repairing america. the better phrase is how to keep america great. now there other great powers emerging. how do you keep america great? can you enjoy vegetables with sauce and still reach your weight loss goals? you can with green giant frozen vegetables. over twenty delicious varieties have sixty calories or less per serving and are now weight watchers-endorsed. try green giant frozen vegetables with sauce. 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[ male announcer ] introducing the reinvented 2012 camry hybrid. from toyota. ♪ what ? customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it ? hello ? hello ?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello ? ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. animal lover, newt gingrich, if you could be any animal, which would you be? you love animals. >> probably an elephant. >> why? >> they have 105,000 muscles in their trunk. it's cool. >> you want 105,000 muscles in your trunk? >> they are big and live a long time and they're smart and social animals. very few things can attack them. >> what do you think mitt romney would be? >> i have no idea. i'm not going to guess. >> queen mary called him a vulture capitalist. >> texans speak in colorful language. >> how are we going to keep america great? you have china and india and the super powers emerging who are genuine rivals to the preimmanent state. america remains a great country. what are the key things a new president, if it is a new president, needs to do? >> offer a hopeful american future. you have to deliberate the american people to be creative. people are rewarded when they do the right things and challenge every parent and every neighborhood to help their children with their education and fundamentally overhaul our education system. >> your mother, you were emotional talking about her because she had a lot of problems, but loved you dearly. your stepfather i found fascinating. a military tough man as a poignant moment when you became speaker. huh a tough time and didn't approve of your first marriage and called him to thank him for what he contributed. what do you think he would make of the newt gingrich you had become. >> considering he wrote from korea after i did the first newspaper article and he said keep him out of the newspapers. i think he would say that this amazing juniory is continue asking aboing and a sense of pride. >> would he prefer the newt gingrigin gingrich today to the less savory. >> he would say it was good that i grew up and it was a good sign. he was a tough direct guy. >> what are would your mother make? >> she would love me under any circumstance. it was absolutely unconditional and she thought i was newty. >> do you feel like you spent the last 50 years bracing yo

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