Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House, issued a warning to fellow members of his party for not supporting Donald Trump because it could lead to Hillary Clinton winning the election.
Gingrich, who supports Trump, spoke in a Facebook Live video, saying that his “only advice to Republican leaders is simple: in the end, you either help defeat Hillary Clinton or you help elect Hillary Clinton.”
He said Clinton would be a “nightmare” as president and would head the “most corrupt and dishonest administration in American history.” Clinton will be even “harder to work with” than President Obama, and “she will simply smother you,” he warned.
“I think to sit on your hands, to find some pretense because Donald Trump is not pure enough, so you’re willing to have Hillary Clinton get elected, is an enormous disservice to the future of the country and to the future of our children and grandchildren,” Gingrich, who ran for president in 2012, added in the video.
He appeared to be responding to Speaker Paul Ryan’s conference call in which he advised fellow GOP lawmakers do to what’s best for their districts. Ryan said he’s not going to defend Trump in the wake of 11-year-old taped comments that surfaced in a Washington Post report last Friday in which Trump made crude and sexually suggestive comments about women. A number of high-ranking Republican officials have attempted to distance themselves from the billionaire businessman.