Newt Gingrich Defends His $2.50 Gas Policy and Says the U.S. Mission in the Middle East May Not Be “Doable”
GOP candidate Newt Gingrich joined Fox News Sunday to discuss his campaign, gas prices, and the latest developments in Afghanistan. He called Mitt Romney a weak frontrunner who most conservatives actually oppose.
Chris Wallace asked him about a new web video attacking Rick Santorum, and whether it would make sense for Gingrich to get out the race to give Santorum one-on-one shot to beat Romney. Gingrich said the video highlights why he hasn’t gotten out because Washington changed Santorum whereas Gingrich himself went to Washington to change it.
When pressed on his $2.50 gas promise, Gingrich maintained that it is possible within two years
, citing drilling in Louisiana and the Keystone XL pipeline as ways to dramatically reduce the cost. “The key thing is the direction I would take the country is towards developing our energy resources,” he said.
Chris made the point that gas experts say even if Gingrich were to greatly increase domestic drilling, it would take three to four years to result in more production. Gingrich replied that it’s a question of what the futures market does to anticipate production.
On the incident earlier in Afghanistan where a U.S. service member allegedly walked off his base and killed civilians, Gingrich said, “We have to indicate clearly and convince the people of Afghanistan that justice will be done and that we are not going to tolerate that kind of thing … When those kinds of things happen, what makes us different from the Taliban or Al Qaeda, they target killing civilians, we work very hard not to have things like this happen and we have to live up to our standards and our values.”
When it comes to Afghans targeting American soldiers after the accidental Koran burnings, Gingrich said that it’s a two-way street and that they owe us an apology. He said he’s reached a conclusion that we may be on a mission in the Middle East that may not be doable. “Look at the things that are going around the region and then ask yourself, is this in fact a harder, deeper problem that is not going to be susceptible to military force, at least not military force on the scale that we’re not prepared to do.”
