Newt Gingrich Lambastes Cory Booker Over Childish Kavanaugh 'Stunts'
Newt Gingrich didn’t get to be speaker of the House in the 1990s by misjudging the political atmosphere. While he may not be everybody’s cup of tea, it’s a good bet he’s probably the smartest political strategist in the room at any given time.
And by now we all know New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker is most likely eyeing a run at the White House in 2020. It may have never been more apparent than when he pulled his childish escapades during last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
But what are his prospects?
Gingrich thinks Booker damaged his chances at a presidential run by his ridiculous grandstanding during the televised hearings.
“You know, when you see these kind of stunts, particularly if they’re not well done, I think Booker shrank as a possible presidential candidate yesterday except maybe on the Comedy Channel,” Gingrich said Friday on Fox News’ “Mornings with Maria.”
“The whole thing was absurd. It has the kind of hyperbole — Spartacus, for those who’ve never paid attention to him, was a gladiator who led a rebellion. At the end of which he and several thousand people were crucified.
“Now to stand in the Senate and say, ‘This is going to be my Spartacus moment,’ is a comment of egocentrism with so little historic knowledge that Booker ought to be, he ought to be ashamed of himself, go back to school, learn something and until then be kind of quiet.”
Check it out here. The Trump segment starts about the 4-minute mark.
https://youtu.be/v9uRqHEuzW8
This is not the first time Booker has taken advantage of televised hearings to grandstand.
In January, The Hill reported how Booker criticized Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for saying she did not hear President Trump say the United States should not accept immigrants from “s—hole countries.”
Booker shouted at Nielson and banged his fists on the dais as he addressed her melodramatically.
“The commander in chief in an Oval Office meeting referring to people from African countries and Haitians with the most vile and vulgar language,” Booker said. “That language festers. When ignorance and bigotry is allied with power it is a dangerous force in our country. Your silence and amnesia is complicity.
“I hurt. When Dick Durbin called me, I had tears of rage when I heard about his experience in that meeting. And for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss some of the questions of my colleagues saying ‘I’ve already answered that line of questions’ when tens of millions of Americans are hurting right now because of what they’re worried about what happened in the White House. That’s unacceptable to me.”
So, is Booker running or president or not? While his behavior suggests he will, CNN reports he’ll make that decision later this year. The network noted that since the 2016 election, Booker has spent a good deal of time traveling in parts of the country traditionally visited by presidential candidates — areas far outside the “Acela corridor,” the Amtrak line that runs from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states to Washington, D.C.
“It’s his travel outside the Acela corridor, coupled with a series of legislative rollouts in the Senate, that is drawing the most attention from Democratic insiders and political observers who view his frenetic 2018 midterms schedule and policy moves as a wink-and-nod entry into the party’s shadow 2020 presidential primary,” CNN’s Eric Bradner wrote.
“In an interview aboard the Acela, Booker says he’ll make a decision about whether to run for president at the end of this year.”
But if Gingrich’s predictions are right, Booker isn’t going to get very far.
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