Newt and The Donald have become buddies this cycle, which is pretty fitting, given the former Speaker of the House has such a history of fibbing.
The would-be Veep is just like Trump when he lies about President Obama and Hillary Clinton. Newt twisted President Obama’s remarks on gas prices and wrongly said Clinton’s health care reform plan had a broader religious exemption than the Affordable Care Act. He wrongly said food stamp recipients could “go to Hawaii” with their benefits and flat out lied about his relationship with Freddie Mac.
Tonight, he will address the GOP. They won’t call his bluff, but we will.
NEWT GINGRICH LIED ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON’S HEALTH CARE REFORM PLAN
Newt Gingrich said that Hillary Clinton’s 1990s health care reform plan had a broader Hobby Lobby-style religious exemption than did the Affordable Care Act. “In Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, the court said the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act allows certain corporations to opt out of providing employees with certain contraception coverage — which were mandated by the ACA — because of the owners’ religious beliefs. Now, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich is saying Bill and Hillary Clinton’s health care reform plan from the 1990s also would have supported the court’s decision. In fact, Hillary Clinton’s plan — which he calls Hillarycare — would have been more favorable to corporations wanting to evade certain parts of Obama’s healthcare law. ‘Hillarycare, 20 years ago, had a broader provision. The bill that (former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y.) introduced for Hillary had a broader provision in favor of corporate right to back out,’ of providing contraceptives based on religious beliefs, Gingrich said on Sunday’s ABC This Week.” [PolitiFact, 7/8/14]
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Hillary Clinton’s health care plan did not include a religious exemption provision. “Gingrich said Hillary Clinton’s health care plan from the 1990s ‘had a broader provision in favor of corporate right to back out’ of providing contraceptive coverage than the one created by the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision. We found that Sen. Moynihan did produce a health care bill, as part of widespread reform efforts, that included a religious exemption for employers that was broader than the provisions created by the court’s decision. However, Gingrich was wrong to connect that back to the Clintons. The Clintons’ health care plans did not include such a provision, and they did not back Moynihan’s bill. In fact, Moynihan was critical of the administration throughout the health care debate. Additionally, his proposal came up near the end of the reform efforts and didn’t generate much discussion. We rate Gingrich’s claim False.” [PolitiFact, 7/8/14]
NEWT GINGRICH LIED ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH FREDDIE MAC
Newt Gingrich said Freddie Mac paid him $300,000 for his advice “as a historian” and that he did not lobby for them. “HARWOOD: Since — since you mentioned Fannie and Freddie, Speaker Gingrich, 30 seconds to you, your firm was paid $300,000 by Freddie Mac in 2006. What did you do for that money? […] GINGRICH: I have — I assume I get a second question. I have never done any lobbying. Every contract was written during the period when I was out of the office, specifically said I would do no lobbying, and I offered advice.” [Republican presidential debate, CNBC, 11/9/11]
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Sources: Freddie Mac hired Newt Gingrich to help build alliances on Capitol Hill, to burnish their reputation, and to meet with donors to the company’s PAC. “And indeed, NPR spoke with two sources who were at Freddie Mac in 2006. They said Gingrich was hired to help Freddie Mac build alliances on Capitol Hill, and to burnish Freddie’s reputation. They said he also met with donors to the company’s political action committee.” [NPR, 11/15/11]
Newt Gingrich said he advised Freddie Mac officials against making risky loans and that there was a housing bubble. “HARWOOD: Since — since you mentioned Fannie and Freddie, Speaker Gingrich, 30 seconds to you, your firm was paid $300,000 by Freddie Mac in 2006. What did you do for that money? […] [GINGRICH:] And my advice as a historian, when they [Freddie Mac officials] walked in and said to me, ‘We are now making loans to people who have no credit history and have no record of paying back anything, but that’s what the government wants us to do,’ as I said to them at the time, this is a bubble. This is insane. This is impossible.” [Republican presidential debate, CNBC, 11/9/11]
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Former Freddie Mac officials: Newt Gingrich never raised the issue of the housing bubble and was not critical of Freddie Mac’s business model. “None of the former Freddie Mac officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Gingrich raised the issue of the housing bubble or was critical of Freddie Mac’s business model.” [Bloomberg, 11/16/11]
NEWT GINGRICH LIED ABOUT PRESIDENT OBAMA’S COMMENTS ON GAS PRICES
Newt Gingrich said President Obama said he was “really worried about higher gas prices because it will make it harder for me to get re-elected,” adding that he “did not make this up.” “At his victory party in Georgia Tuesday night, Newt Gingrich again turned his attention to gas prices, the issue that he’s staked the hail mary [sic] hopes of his campaign on. But this time, Gingrich added a little something to his pitch: a paraphrase of President Obama’s answer on gas prices at a Tuesday press conference that was so broad, it became pure fiction. ‘I thought today, in one of the most shallow and self-serving comments by a president I’ve heard in a long time, he was candid in his press conference,’ Gingrich said. ‘He said, you know, I’m really worried about higher gas prices because it will make it harder for me to get re-elected. I did not make this up.’” [Mediaite, 3/7/12]
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President Obama never said what Newt Gingrich claimed he did about gas prices. “Except Gingrich kind of did make it up. Here’s what Obama actually said at this Tuesday press conference when asked about gas prices by Fox News’ Ed Henry. ‘Your critics on Capitol Hill have said you want gas prices to go higher, because you have said before that will ween the American people off fossil fuels and onto renewable fuels,’ Henry said. ‘How do you respond to that?’ Here’s what Obama said: ‘Ed, just from a political perspective, do you think the President of the United States, going into reelection, wants gas prices to go up even higher? … Is there anybody here who thinks that makes a lot of sense?’” [Mediaite, 3/7/12]
NEWT GINGRICH LIED ABOUT FOOD STAMPS
Newt Gingrich said food stamps could “be used for anything,” including “to go to Hawaii,” and that they were given to millionaires. “In his Council Bluffs speech — at a ‘slice the deficit’ pizza party sponsored by a group called Strong America Now — Gingrich added a new twist. According to NBC News campaign ‘embed’ Alexandra Moe, Gingrich said this: ‘Remember, this is the best food stamp president in history. So more Americans today get food stamps than before. And we now give it away as cash — you don’t get food stamps. You get a credit card, and the credit card can be used for anything. We have people who take their food stamp money and use it to go to Hawaii. They give food stamps now to millionaires because, after all, don’t you want to be compassionate? You know, the Obama model: isn’t there somebody you’d like to give money to this week. That’s why we’re now going to help bailout Italy because we haven’t bailed out enough people this week, the president thought let’s write another check. After all, we have so much extra money.’” [PolitiFact, 12/1/11]
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PolitiFact: Newt Gingrich’s claims about food stamps were “ridiculous.” “Each of Gingrich’s claims about food stamps is so ridiculous — especially for a self-styled policy wonk — that we wondered whether he was really intending to be serious. (By publication time, we did not receive answers to several queries made to his press staff.) But the transcript makes it sound like he wasn’t joking, so we’ll assume he wasn’t. For being so ridiculously wrong in so many ways, we rate his statement Pants on Fire.” [PolitiFact, 12/1/11]