Newt Gingrich on What Trump Could Accomplish in a Second Term | The New YorkerSkip to main contentNewsletterSearchSearchThe LatestNewsBooks & CultureFiction & PoetryHumor & CartoonsMagazinePuzzles & GamesVideoPodcastsGoings OnShop100th AnniversaryOpen Navigation MenuMenuThe New Yorker Radio HourNewt Gingrich on What Trump Could Accomplish in a Second TermA second Trump Administration would be “dramatically more managerial and practical,” the former Speaker of the House claims. Trump “has a much deeper grasp of what has to be done.”With David RemnickOctober 4, 2024FacebookXEmailPrintSave StoryIllustration by Diego MalloSave this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyListen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever You ListenSign up for our daily newsletter to get the best of The New Yorker in your in-box.Long before Donald Trump got serious about politics, Newt Gingrich saw himself as the revolutionary in Washington, introducing a combative style of politics that helped his party become a dominating force in Congress. Setting the template for Trump, Gingrich described Democrats not as an opposing team with whom to make alliances but as an alien force—a “cultural élite”—out to destroy America. Gingrich has written no fewer than five admiring books about Trump, and he was involved in pushing the lie of the stolen election of 2020. Like many in the Party, he balks at some of Trump’s tactics, but always finds an excuse. “I would probably not have used the language Trump used,” for example in calling Vice-President Kamala Harris “mentally disabled,” Gingrich says. “Partly because I think that it doesn’t further his cause. . . . I would simply say that he is a very intense personality . . . and occasionally he has to explode.” But he sees Trump as seasoned and improved with age, and his potential in a second term far greater. “It’s almost providential: he’s had four years [out of office] to think about what he’s learned . . . and he has a much deeper grasp of what has to be done and how to do it.”New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.New Yorker FavoritesSearching for the cause of a catastrophic plane crash.The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool.Gloria Steinem’s life on the feminist frontier.Where the Amish go on vacation.How Colonel Sanders built his Kentucky-fried fortune.What does procrastination tell us about ourselves?Fiction by Patricia Highsmith: “The Trouble with Mrs. Blynn, the Trouble with the World”Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker.More:Politics2024 Presidential ElectionNewt GingrichRepublicans, Republican PartyRead MoreThe Political Scene PodcastDavid Remnick on the Dawn of Trump’s Second Term“The hunger that there was to know every detail, every tweet, every remark, has receded immeasurably, to Trump’s benefit,” the editor of The New Yorker says.The New Yorker Radio HourHow “Saturday Night Live” Reinvented Television, Fifty Years AgoThe New Yorker editor Susan Morrison on Lorne Michaels, the producer who still runs “S.N.L.” with an iron hand. 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What are the measurements for negative accomplishments?