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Jamie Chambers drags Bambi back into the life of Newt Gingrich, now a college professor with a wife and two children as he plots to take over the 6th Congressional District of Georgia, takes a huge advance for a book he would never write, and downplays his love of Richard Nixon. Newt chides his opponent for plans to work away from her family if elected while he constantly cheats on his wife during her cancer treatments and divorces her immediately after winning—before giving a middle finger to the friends and supporters who helped get him to Washington.

In this episode we encourage listeners to support their local food pantries. Find a location near you using this website: https://foodfinder.us

It chainsaw history time. Yeah, that

nasal surgery, it changes the whole

acoustics in there. It fixed it. I

remember having to adjust afterwards

because it wasn't quite the same, but I

liked it better, baby. Here we are back

where we started this whole thing back

at my. Five years ago. Yeah, it's been

a. God, has it been that long? 20, 21.

Yeah, it's been a really long five

years. It's been crazy, but not that

many episodes because of all this stuff

that's happened in between each one.

And if we sound different, it is because

we are back where we started. Raven

Sound Studios is currently under

construction. Apparently Kevin tells us

we're gonna have an even cooler

recording space once it's all done. But

until then, we are back doing old school

with my crappy home microphone and

laptop. And we're currently sitting in.

On. In your bedroom? Yep. With the

podcast dog sitting nearby. Yeah.

And if you hear faint whimpering in the

background, it's the other two. The

other two dogs who are sad. They can't

be in here. But trust me, that's a bad

idea. Yeah, we would not be able to

record. So do you remember all that time

ago when we talked about a dude with a

really huge head named Newt Gingrich?

Yes. Ish. Yeah. My former college

professor, former speaker of the House

of Representatives. We talked about him

on this very show approximately 78 years

ago. Yeah. So it's okay if you don't

remember a whole lot from part one.

Unlike our previous subjects, Newt is

still very much alive and still very

much running his mouth. He doesn't know

how to stop. Yeah, we see him on Fox.

He's a really good buddy with Sean

Hannity. Oh yeah, has been ever since

the days when Sean Hannity was a local

talk radio host. Gross. To give

listeners context, as of this recording,

the United States is tangled up in a war

with Iran with important shipping lane

known as the Strait of Hormuz currently

shut down. And a lot of very big brains

on the Internet have decided to weigh in

on this. How to get us out of this

particular pickle. Well, we shouldn't

have gotten into this particular pickle.

Oh, dumb. Why are we talking about that?

We have a problem to solve here.

There's been a lot of hilarious memes

about all the ways you could go by land

around the Strait that are all very

dumb. And I don't understand how any of

this works, but. However, none of the

ideas presented on the Internet have

been as jaw droppingly dumb as the one

presented by Professor Gingrich. So over

on x.com the everything app, on a tweet

dated March 15, 2026, Newt cited a

substack newsletter called Chinatalk as

his source for this incredible idea.

Instead of fighting over a 21 mile

bottleneck forever, we cut a new channel

through friendly territory. A dozen

thermonuclear detonations and you've got

a waterway wider than the Panama Canal,

deeper than the Suez, and safe from

Iranian attacks, unquote. Yeah, that

seems dumb. That seems ultra dumb,

Jimmy. He's decided we can solve this

shipping crisis by dropping a dozen

nukes in the Middle east on our allied

countries, no less. Yeah, they would

just fucking love that. Now we could

spend way too much time dissecting all

the ways. This is insanely stupid, but

this should be self evident to everyone

listening that this is a bad and dumb

idea. Now, the Chinatalk article Newt

references is titled it's time an open

Letter to Secretary Hegseth. And it

springs off a real proposal from decades

ago called Project Plowshare, which was

a real sort of like exploratory concept

of using nukes to create a sea level

canal through Colombia. We didn't do

this because every subject matter expert

made it clear it was a really fucking

stupid idea. Yeah, because that seems

dumb as fuck. Are you kidding? And so if

you get all the way down to the bottom

of this article, the final paragraph of

it reads, boss is a builder. Trump

doesn't want to play nice with a

coalition of countries. He hates to

patrol the Strait of Hormuz. He wants to

cut a ribbon and watch the Chiron on

Fox. Trump canal opens largest in human

history. Mr. Secretary. Give him that

Chiron and you win the war and you keep

your job. We can even tariff the

tankers. Unquote. That's the.

Now hold on, hold on, hold on. Before

you explode, just in case you didn't

catch the absurdist tone of the article,

it also includes a disclaimer at the

very, very end quote. The views

expressed above do not necessarily

represent those of anyone with brain

cells. So yes, it's true. My one time

college history professor, former

speaker of the House, once second in

line to become President of the United

States and could hypothetically have had

control of the nuclear codes, made a

serious proposal about nuking the Middle

east based on a satire article written

by an Internet troll. Oh my God, that's

the most boomer shit fucking. And he

wrote it to Pete Hegseth, the also we

have the dumbest people alive in in

charge of the most powerful nation On

Earth. It's fucking terrible. Oh, my

God. At least Newt's hands are far away

from power at this point. He's just

posting stuff on Twitter. That's okay.

I don't think Pete Hudset is keeping his

job anyway. We shall see. He's already

being set up to be under a bus. Yeah,

we can't veer off topic and get away

with it. That'd be a long talk about

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. But

instead, we're focusing on the idiot who

decided we should nuke the Middle east

to create a new canal, My former

teacher, Newt, who we've left alone for

months. We've had a lot going on, but

he's left us no choice now but to hurt

him a little bit more. So we've come out

of our semi retirement to show everybody

what a weird little freak he's always

been. So for that, for listeners, that

means we're back to the saga of

Professor Newt, Part 2. The Gingrich

strikes back. Yeah. Oh,

boy. Are we going to learn about how

Newt fucking is terrible and how he

destroyed democracy? Indeed. Cool. So

welcome to Chainsaw History, everybody.

That was a long intro going in. This is

the podcast in which we look at American

history with the same reverence and

respect Afroman showed the Ohio

sheriff's deputies who've raided his

house. Fuck the police, indeed. I'm your

host, Jamie Chambers, and this is my

sister Bambi. Hello. We are a comedy

podcast, everybody. I'm not a historian,

but I've watched a bunch of Ken Burns

documentaries over the years, so that'll

have to do. Yeah, I'm. I'm here for the

ride, y'. All. If you go to

chainsawhistory.com you can look at ways

to support the show, find some of our

extra content, like our Value of Series,

where Bambi reads me 80s children's

biographies, and no Time for Love, Dr.

Jones, where we explore the fictional

life of Indiana Jones. And just so

everybody knows, here's a little warning

up top. There is zero way to avoid the

discussion of politics in this episode.

So if you want your history. If you want

your history free of modern American

political drama and bullshit, I don't

blame you. But the story of Newt

Gingrich is just not for you. Because

he, like Baby says he kind of is one of

the reasons we are where we are. And

that's why he's worth talking about,

not just because I knew him briefly.

Yeah. I mean, on top of being just ultra

shitty, he's very, very relevant,

especially to this one moment, even if

he's also powerless and impotent at this

point. Pathetic. Which is funny, and

we'll talk about that in part three.

But as usual, we have a ton of sources.

The two most important ones for this

episode are Burning down the House,

Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker,

and Rise of the New Republican Party by

Julian E. Zelizer. And the other main

Source is a PBS Frontline documentary

all the way back from 1996 called the

Long March of Newt Gingrich, which you

can still find freely available on

PBS.org/ I will cite a bunch of

newspaper articles and other stuff as we

go along. So in a very brief recap of

last episode, last time, we covered how

Newt's biological father was an

aggressive drunk and his stepfather that

he grew up with was a terrifying

military disciplinarian. And the little

guy lived in a room filled with snakes

and dreamed of owning his own zoo one

day. If only he could have just had a

zoo. That's in that alternate timeline

where Hitler became a happy painter.

You got to run a zoo. Well, as a

teenager he visited a World War I

battlefield, Verdun, and dreamed of

political power, thinking I should be

the one to send men to die. Yeah, that.

That's here in Georgia. Newt started

fooling around with his high school

geometry teacher, who he married and

fathered two children with after his

first year in college. You know, she

gets what she gets. Unfortunately, this

does not go well for as you will see in

this episode. Then the family moved to

New Orleans for new to attend grad

school for his career plan to be a

college history professor. And while on

campus he helped organize a protest

movement on behalf of nudity. Oh, and

his college dissertation kind of made

light of Belgian atrocities during their

colonization of the Congo. And that's

where we kind of ended was this shitty

dissertation that he finally became a

college professor after basically

saying, isn't it great that white people

civilized all the black people of the

Congo? Good God, he's terrible. Yep,

but if only he would have stayed a

college professor and just been shitty.

As you'll see, he does not say a college

professor. No, he doesn't. Because that

was never really his long term plan,

even at this stage in his life. So this

is where we pick Back up with Reverend

Dr. Newton Leroy McPherson Gingrich.

And except for the Reverend Fart, all of

those things are his actual name.

Finally out of college and ready to make

a name for himself in the wide world.

And boy howdy, does he. You ready for

this oh, God. Let's. Let's do

it. All right, so let's get back.

We're. In the early 1970s, Newt was

a fan of the Vietnam War and military

action. Jonk of stopping communism, of

course, as a conservative warrior is a

huge priority. But he'd use his own

marriage and student status to obtain

deferments, which was way less

humiliating than being outright rejected

for being half blind with flat feet

because he would have never had to

serve. He was physically not great. But

with his education complete, Newt was

ready to build his career that was a lot

less about teaching and a lot more about

politics. This is why he chose his first

teaching position as a college history

professor, based on how he felt about

Georgia's 6th congressional district

more than the details of the college or

the job. So he landed at West Georgia

College in September 1970, again,

because this was a vulnerable district

that he felt he might be able to win.

Con. Yeah. His friend and biographer,

Mel Steely, had this to say. Ever since

I've known Newt, he has felt that he

would have an impact on history, that he

was a historical person when he was a

teacher here at West Georgia. He viewed

himself as a historical, historical

person in his young years. Talk about

the young Churchill. You know, you study

that to try to get an idea who this guy

is later on and so forth. Well, I mean,

yeah, he's historical, but so is Hitler.

Right. But when you literally are in

your 20s, you're still young, and you're

starting your career, and you're like,

I am going to. I'm going to make

history. That is narcissistic. Yeah,

it's complete narcissism. It's awful.

And then we see how he treats other

people over time. He's kind of the

malignant narcissist, the toxic kind.

He's. Spoiler alert, everybody. Newt's

not a good person. So, yeah, definitely

a healthy way of looking yourself very

at the beginning of your career. But it

does call back to his ambitions. When

his stepdad took him to the European

battlefields of World War I, he's like,

ooh, I want to be the guy sitting back

in Washington sending these guys to die

in these killing fields. That's not

normal, Jamie. That's not. Usually

people feel some kind of. Some people,

most people, I would think, would at

least feel a sense of awe. Not. I need

to get to so many accounts of people who

visit the battlefields of, like, Verdun

and the Somme. And, like, what? Like,

just be in that space where so many died

and there's all these visuals of it. It

should be solemn, it should be a little

sad. Newt was just like, no, this, this

could be me. Not out here. God, no, I

want to be back there. I want to be back

there signing pieces of paper that make

this shit happen. But anyway, despite

his long term goals, Newt's job was

teaching history to college students,

which of course, is how I know him best.

A friend and former student named Lee

Howell gave his own grade to Newt as a

teacher. He's a very good teacher, very

stimulating. That's what you want a

teacher to be, is make you think. And he

did make you think. If you take his

lectures or nowadays if you take his

political speeches and put them down in

black and white, you realize they're

pretty shallow. And you realize you can

shoot holes through them. And he's not

the most logical person, but when he's

speaking, he's impressive. God, that's

his friend, or at least former friend at

this point. But yeah, it's like, it's

like. And I will tell you this, I 100%

had this exact same thing with new.

Because when he's talking, he really

does have this certain charisma. And he

has just enough of this backing because

he does cite things, because he reads

stuff, but at the same time, he strings

together all this stuff and it's like

once you think about it hard, it falls

apart. It's the kind of thing that

impresses young men, like I was at the

time. But then once you actually develop

critical thinking skills and you're not

just bowled over by his large ego and

his presence, it's like, oh, yeah, this

guy's kind of full of shit. Yeah, well,

you know, I can name our a particular

vice president that we have currently

that he makes the dumbest shit sound

somewhat intelligible. Yeah. But the sad

thing is Newt had more dignity and

respect than our current vice president.

Well, I mean, he has no Riz.

He's. He doesn't have the. And Newt had

enough Riz to marry his high school math

teacher, which gross. I mean, for

whatever you got to say about that. It

was during this period where Newt got a

nickname used behind his back at

college, Mr. Truth. Because Professor

Gingrich bulldozed everyone else with

what his version of the truth might be.

And he couldn't understand why his

brilliance didn't fast track his

academic career, even though he'd never

bothered to publish his dissertation and

did not want to build up his credentials

over time. It's like, don't you know who

I Am nobody, motherfucker. You're a

junior professor at a college. So after

one year on the job, he applied to be

president of the college. Oh my God.

Was stunned when the administration

instantly rejected him. Then the next

year he applied to be the chair of the

History department and was once again

shocked when that the dean didn't pick

him for the job. Like two years in he

wants to be president and or chair of

the History Department. No, that's not

how hierarchy works. Yeah, it's

definitely not how academic nickademia

and that career track, which is a slow

thing, which again too want to do

something you actually have to publish

and you know, do stuff besides just

giving lectures. So after a few years of

teaching and not becoming emperor of

West Georgia College, the professor

decided his moment had arrived. The 6th

Congressional District was reapportioned

in 1971 to be a little less

gerrymandered. And so it changed from a

purely rural district to one that

included some suburban and even a little

bit of the urban areas in Fulton County.

Newt sensed that it was time to break

the Democratic Party's hold. From the

book Burning down the House. Voters in

the reorganized 6th district were

unified by an overall hostility to high

taxation, by a business friendly

posture, and by an eagerness to reject

the stereotypes of old line Southern

racism, even while racial inequality

remained deeply embedded in the

residential and educational character of

its neighborhoods. Newt's target was a

stereotypical Dixiecrat, an old World

War II veteran named John Flint, who'd

stood firmly against LBJ's civil rights

legislation. So this is back the George

Wallace era. Racist Democrats from in

the South. Yep, that all eventually

flipped and became Republicans. But this

is still in the transitional period

because we're in 1971, as we would

continue to do. Throughout his political

career, Newt positioned himself as an

outsider to taking on the establishment,

trying to make a tent that could include

anyone sick of the status quo and ready

for new leadership and ideas. In one

press conference, Newt said the

following. The second thing I think I do

as a congressman, I think is, I think is

demand a real sense of ethical fairness

in Congress. I mean, the place is

sufficiently corrupt right now that

there's no reason for anyone back home

to have any trust in their congressman.

No shit, Newt. Oh, God. Okay.

Yeah. How do you. I mean, do you feel

great about Congress right now? No. But

he certainly didn't help. The professor

drew inspiration from two jarringly

different American political figures.

Again from burning down the House.

Quote, Richard Nixon wasn't wedded to

any particular issues as much as he was

concerned with winning elections. Like

Newt's other hero, Teddy Roosevelt,

Nixon struck him as a role model for his

own generation of Republicans. A shrewd,

pragmatic strategist who was attempting

to build a durable governing Republican

majority with sizable blue collar

support, unquote. So yes, Richard Nixon

and Teddy Roosevelt are two. Newt's two

guiding stars of pre. Of presidents at

this point. And Nixon is president at

this moment. You should have leaned more

towards Teddy Roosevelt and less towards

Nixon. So as we're getting to this point

where Newt's running for the first time

for real, it's 1974. I said 71 earlier.

And that was when right after he. That

was the year he was doing all that shit

in west Georgia college. So this is

1974, and the Watergate scandal was

dominating the news. And Newt, Bert

didn't exactly advertise his love and

admiration for Tricky Dick. Oh, you

don't say. In fact, he capitalized on it

and tried to tie his opponent to the

broken corruption in Washington, even

though he was in the opposite party. So

standing against the openly racist

Dixiecrat, Newt scored the endorsement

of the Atlanta Daily World, the oldest

black newspaper in Georgia endorsed Newt

and stated he is, quote, a progressive

in his views and he is also fair minded

on racial issues, unquote. Flint slammed

Newt with negative ads that left him so

butthurt that he filed a complaint. Ha

ha. Quote, and this is a direct

violation of the Fair Campaign Practices

committee code of ethics. And I am

filing a protest with them, asking them

to come in and investigate his

commercial and ask him to take the

commercial off the air and to apologize

for it, unquote. What a. I know you just

want to give him a wedgie, you fucking

dork. Fucking bitch. And as far as I'm

aware, nothing came of this complaint.

You little bitch. The campaign didn't

have much of a budget, so there were a

lot of like DIY signs and volunteers

donating their own materials. One story

has Newt's team creating campaign

materials by lantern light in an empty

warehouse with no other power on. So

1974 was a hell of a year to run as a

Republican. Yeah, I'm sure it was. So

it's likely Nixon stalled the beginning

of Newt's political career. He lost even

if he made a decent showing against a

longtime incumbent. Most younger, more

progressive candidates ran as Democrats,

which helped Newt stand out and make an

early name for himself, even if he

didn't get the needed vote. So everybody

took notice that Newt came out of

nowhere and did okay. Yeah, Even as a

Republican. Yeah. Former Gingrich

campaign treasurer Kip Carter had this

to say. You got to remember we had a

long haired college professor, wore

glasses. His name was Newt. He was a

Yankee and he had no connections in the

community at all. And to take a guy like

that and to win 47, 48% of the vote was

pretty incredible. So the loss was not

unexpected. And he went in knowing that

your first campaign. Yeah. Is a harder

sell. But he was, you know, a Newt.

Geared up for the next fight. Heading up

to Wisconsin in 1975. Year I was born to

attend election campaign classes run by

a conservative activist named Paul

Weyrich, who a few years earlier had co

founded a think tank you might have

heard of the Heritage Foundation. Oh no.

Ding ding, ding, ding. Project 25.

They're the worst. They gave us

Obamacare too, actually. Yeah, well,

which isn't great. How's that going

exactly? Newt ended up dominating the

discussions in this election class. So

even though he's a student in the class,

he's talking as much as the guy giving

the the lecture. And he impressed the

hell out of Wyrick, who had this to say

about this quote. I made a conscious

effort to make Newt a star of the

conservative movement. We had magazines,

bulletins, and I got him featured on the

COVID of everyone. No one had ever heard

of him. I made an effort to be Newt's

promoter, unquote. Oh. So again he's

like, this guy's got the juice. Great.

They saw Newt's potential. They saw what

a potential piece of shit he was. If you

just hear me incoherently scream, just.

Just know it's because I'm no longer can

articulate word for how much I think he

sucks. So Newt refined his message for

the 1976 rematch against John Flynt,

speaking out against a proposal for

national health insurance. Of course.

Trust me, that's an old conversation

that keeps coming up and being shot down

like we're at a fucking skeet shooting

range. And Newt also wanting the United

States to take a hard line against the

evil communists of the Soviet Union.

You'll also love that he endorsed a

states rights approach to abortion

because this is pre Roe v. Wade. Yeah,

well, you know, and now we're post Roe

v. Wade. So there you go. We live in

hell. Newt even got a bump from

conservative hero and racist shithead

Barry Goldwater. Ah. But still lost the

race. Yay. Richard Nixon shadow

was still all over the Republican party.

And here in Georgia, a nuclear physicist

and peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter won

The hearts and minds of a nation. And

took the Democrats pretty well as far as

Georgia goes. Yeah, well, I like Jimmy

Carter. Me too. He was a good dude.

Rest in peace. You know, it's like, I

want Georgia to remember Jimmy Carter.

I would love it if Newt and Gingrich

could just die. He's old and he sucks.

Won't be long. All that said, our boy

lost by less than a percentage point.

So Newt smelled blood in the water and

knew that his day was coming. So he got

even close. I mean, he get within a

hair. Photo finish, close race. So Newt

didn't slow down. He kept giving

speeches and fundraising. He kept

beating his drum about corruption in

American politics, positioning himself

as the ethical champion the House of

Representatives needed. Meanwhile, old

man Flint wasn't crazy about his

district, which was no longer

exclusively a bunch of racist hicks,

and decided not to run again. So

suddenly, suddenly, no more incumbency

he has to go up against. So this might

shock you, but with all this focus on

politics, Newt wasn't great at his day

job being a college professor. Yeah.

So while his lectures were popular,

Newt never published his research and

was regularly absent for campaigning.

So he and West Georgia College parted

ways. Yeah, he was let go.

Decided to go in a different direction

with somebody who's going to like, be

here and care about the actual this job

and not using it as a stepping stone so

he can be one day President of the

United States. Yeah. But now Newt

doesn't have a job. They live in a

little house with shitty furniture and

are now forced to rely exclusively on

Jackie's paycheck as a public school

teacher. Oh, yeah, I'm sure that. And

guess what? Public school teachers,

they don't make shit in Carrollton,

Georgia in the early 1970s. And you're a

woman. Yeah. You don't make shit. So,

yeah, with two failed political

campaigns and one ex job, you can

imagine their marriage was going just

great. Yeah, I mean, you know,

don't fuck kids.

I'm glad. You know, it's like, I'm sorry

that their marriage didn't work out or

whatever, but you know her, she seems

just as terrible. Didn't. It wasn't a

great auspicious start. When it's like,

yeah, your. Your student in your math

class is your. Your high school.

It's. It's icky. So Newt needed to think

outside the box. A phrase he loved using

for his students back when he had those.

In fact, he even did the stupid think

outside the box thing with a piece of

paper. I'll Describe it in next episode.

But it's one of those things he uses

that tries to blow your mind until you

realize how fucking trite and stupid it

is. So, any guesses how he could raise

some money to keep his dreams alive?

Car wash, Bake sale. What do you think

he's going to do? Oh, God. Probably

something fucking terrible. So after.

After two promising campaigns, Newt

approached a wealthy donor named Chester

Roche. He wanted to write a novel. And

his idea was to write a novel based upon

a possible land war with the Russians

coming after NATO. And so it sounded

good. Two or three of us offered to help

him financially with some seed money,

and they ended up about 14 or 15 of us.

So Newt grabbed a check for 13 grand and

took his family on a European vacation

for research purposes. Oh, my God.

And Bambi, I'm terribly sorry to tell

you that you will never get to read

Newt's incredible masterpiece about the

Soviet invasion because he never wrote

it. Yeah, that surprises me.

Not at all. Again, from his former

campaign treasurer, Kip Carter. I think

the primary focus was to keep him alive

till the next campaign.

He is. I don't write well either,

but he's not a good writer. Anybody

that's ever read anything he has written

knows he's not a good writer. I don't

think there were any illusions that he

was going to write the great American

novel, even though, funny enough, Newt

has now written a whole bunch of books,

and a bunch of them are on our mom's

shelf. Oh, God. However, the donors had

set things up so that Newt was

effectively a tax shelter and he had the

money he needed to. To keep his family

going through the 1978 campaign.

Thirteen grand was more than his salary

had been at West Georgia College. So he

basically just took this guy's money

and. Well, no, they also. But they also

knew the whole point of it was just to.

They wanted. Because they wanted him to

run because he was going to be in.

Because these are all businessmen that

he's going to be in bed with once he

wins. So that's. It was always just a

fucking scam. But they were in on this

scam. Scammers be scamming. The former

professor also decided to hit up the

Republican National Committee for money.

He set up a meeting with a deputy

chairman, a guy named Eddie Mahy from

burning down the house. When Mayhey

entered his office, he found Gingrich

seated in front of his desk. Mayhey

peered through his Coke bottle glasses

at the mysterious gentleman in the

madras jacket and polyester pants and

thought how did this dork get in here?

Even though Mayhey had a busy day ahead

of him, he sat down and asked Gingrich

what he wanted. Without missing a beat,

Gingrich delivered a 3 1/2 minute

monologue about how the Republicans

could win in Southern districts that had

been solidly Democratic via the story of

his own campaign. Mayhey was hooked.

So once again, Gingrich storms into

somebody's office and pulls his magic,

just like he did when he was a kid and

went into that city planner's office to

talk about a fucking zoo. This is what

he does, and he's really good at it.

Got to give him credit. He's got the

gift of gab. He's a salesman, really.

You got to admire the hustle, if nothing

else. And I. And he walked away with

$50,000 toward his campaign and a team

of real election people with actual

experience. And there you go. And you

will love the name of his new political

consultant, Bob Weed. He doesn't

deserve to have Bob light one up for Bob

Weed, because Bob Weed gives us some

juicy quotes later. Bob was probably the

guy who got Newt to stop looking like

shit, starting with dropping some lard

and getting a damn haircut. From author

Craig Shirley. Quote, the used car

salesman. Ties, shirts and suits had

been booed, banished, hopefully burned.

And the log sideburns have been 86,

along with the steel rim glasses. He was

now photographed in attire befitting a

young politician on the go. Red ties and

solid blue, gray or black suits,

Unquote. Okay, yeah, so he's looked

like a hippie college professor, but the

nerdiest kind, with really thick glasses

and the. The big bowl cut with the

sideburns. Like he's not even the cool

college professor. He looks like ass. I

mean, not that Newt ever looked great,

but at least he looked like a politician

by the time, you know, after. After Bob

Weed got ahold of him. Yeah, well, you

know, which is ironic because Newt

didn't actually like actual Weed when he

tried it. That's because he's a person

that needs control. He also is deeply

uncool and repelled by anything that

might be fucking dork. So America in

1978 was a lot more receptive to

conservative messaging. The economy was

in the toilet, and America seemed on the

downward slide. And President Carter was

perceived as weak. So Newt went all in

on the hip new conservative ideas,

especially about the economy. Oh,

trickle down economics. Is that where

we're getting to, Jamie? Yes. Did you

know that if you cut taxes for the rich,

it will Encourage investment and

entrepreneurship and that if there's

some short term budget deficits, it's

all good because the whole economy will

grow and grow and just automatically

generate balanced budgets, even surplus

and all of us are going to be rich.

That's right. As you said, supply side

economics, trickle down economics as

popularized by Ronald Reagan. The plan

that George H.W. bush called anyone

something doo economics,

voodoo economics. Like even,

even Bush knew that this was horseshit.

Like yeah, cut the source of revenue but

magically revenue increases or you get

in more and more debt as we have now to

where just our interest payments alone

that our grandchildren will be having to

hustle for forever. In the various minds

working for the AI powered robots at

this point, you know, maybe the robots

need to be in charge. We have the

dumbest people in charge. Just because

it's never worked in the last 50 years.

It's just because we haven't given them

enough tax cuts yet. We've taxed them to

zero. We poors are too selfish to starve

to death for the long term economic

gain. The Dow at one point was over

50,000 baby. Not and not anymore,

that's for fucking sure. The rest of

Newt's platform might sound familiar

including things like deregulating

businesses, welfare reform, opposing the

Equal Rights Amendment which still has

not been made made into the Constitution

to this day because that's supposed to

be equal rights for women. It's related

to equal pay for equal work and all

that. Yeah, yeah, we love to run on it.

We don't want to fix. We don't want to

fix it still ain't a thing. Yeah, Newt

wanted more funding for the military and

continuing to on Jimmy Carter for giving

away the Panama Canal which both of us

heard our dead ranting about. Oh my God

like long. The only reason I know about

that long before now, long before.

Let's go Brandon. There was bitching

about Jimmy Carter giving away the

Panama Canal. Imagine people having

control over the waterway in their own

country. So Newt went from having

environmentalists volunteering in his

first campaign to taking large donations

from an oil company. Yeah, one that had

a bad history of pollution no less.

Yeah. No, because you know why? They

don't have conviction. They're pieces of

shit. So yeah, by the time his third

that's where he'd gone. He kept banging

the drum about government corruption and

proclaimed Tip o' Neill's title should

be changed from speaker to Dictator of

the House. Oh my God. Now Bob

Weed had a simple framing. This is a

quote from Bob Weed. He had a Simple

framing for what could have been Newt's

last shot at politics, running against a

moderate Democrat named Virginia

Shepard. My take on it is we run this

straight as a left right race and that

we're the conservative, she's the

liberal, and that's 90% of the race.

Kind of like now, so.

And Newt was all in on the politics of

fighting, including and especially

fighting dirty. In a speech to a group

of college Republicans at the Atlanta

airport, he told them to get nasty and

not to be afraid to get in a slugfest.

Told them to raise hell all the time.

I want you all to learn a lesson. When

you see somebody doing something dumb,

say it. You don't help your party any by

sitting off to the side and saying,

God, I wish you weren't so stupid. You

weaken your party. And when you say it,

say it in the press, say it loud.

Fight. Scrap. Issue a press release. Go

make a speech. So you're just, what,

harassing people at airports? Well, no,

he was giving a speech. This was just

the location of his speech to these. To

this group of young college. College

students that were. It was like a

political go, go forth and be shitty to

one another. She's already teaching

young dudes how to be better little

Republicans. So they attacked Shapard as

a radical feminist who was willing to

destroy her own family in pursuit of

political power, all while framing Newt

as a devoted husband and father and a

churchgoing family man. Even his wife

Jackie was reluctantly recruited to help

write letters and talk to people while

dealing with fucking uterine cancer.

Does this give you flashbacks? Oh my

God. Fucking.

Okay, continue. Lee Howell reported it

this way. I personally don't think that

she wanted to. Wanted Newt to run a

third time. I know that she probably

wouldn't want to be involved in it. She

just overcome her first cancer operation

the summer before that campaign. But

when he made the decision he was going

to run, she threw herself into his

campaign and worked as hard as she could

and wrote the famous letters of let our

family represent your family in

Washington. Ugh. Yeah, because we

couldn't possibly let a woman heal from

cancer. The campaign played up the

contrast between the two families.

Mother Jones reports on this campaign ad

in an article that should have destroyed

Newt's political ambitions all the way

back in 1984. But Mother Jones was only.

Wasn't super widely circulated. So

nobody showed absolutely devastating

expose that this guy did quote under the

Shapard photo. The ad said, if elected,

Virginia will move to Washington, but

her children and husband will remain in

Griffin under the Gingrich photo. When

elected, Newt will keep his family

together, unquote. Gotta love

a family man. So, yeah, the whole thing

was Shapird's husband owned a local

business and their kids were already in

school at a certain age, so she decided

it'd be better for her family for them

to stay behind, and then she would just

commute back and forth. Lots. Lots of

politicians do that. But because this,

again, this is the 19. This is the

1970s. And portraying a mother willing

to abandon her children was a way to get

in on a woman for daring to actually try

to have a man's job. Yeah. He's like,

I'm gonna drag my family with me. So now

let's talk about Newt as the family man

again. From the same Mother Jones

article. Quote, one former aide

describes approaching a car with

Gingrich's daughters in hand, only to

find the candidate with a woman, her

head buried in his lap. The aide quickly

turned and led the girls away. Another

former friend maintains that Gingrich

repeatedly made sexual advances on her

when her husband was out of town. On one

occasion, he visited her under the guise

of comforting her after the death of a

relative and instead tried to seduce

her. Unquote. What a piece of shit. So,

wife's still recovering from cancer.

Shit. Yeah. And he's cheating on her.

He's getting blowjobs with his daughters

just 100 yards away. Yeah. Because he's

such a family man. Meanwhile. Yeah.

Attacking this woman because she simply

was gonna commute and let her husband

keep his. Their family business and keep

their kids in the schools that they

like. Yeah. What a terrible,

terrible woman. Can't let women, you

know. And also made his wife write all

kinds of letters to talk about what a

great dude he was while he was doing all

of this shit. I don't like it.

I'm against it. So the campaign race

baited by portraying shepherd as being

close to a controversial civil rights

activist, they made fun of her weight.

And at the end of the campaign, Newt

falsely accused her of campaign finance

violations. Oh, yeah, that doesn't sound

familiar at all. What you get, you get a

little bit of a whiff of George Wallace.

What a fucking monster. Newt won the

election by 8 points. Not even close

enough for a runoff. So suddenly, Newt

was a big deal in national politics

because he flipped a long held

Democratic stronghold. The RNC appointed

him to head a new task force. And as a

junior House member, he arrived in

Washington with three stated defeat.

The Soviet empire replace the welfare

state and replace the Democrats as the

majority Party in the house.

The little guy with the big head was

finally on his way. Kip Carter remembers

how quickly Newt decided he had moved on

from the people who supported and helped

him. Quote, I was sort of chiding him

about not staying in touch with the

people, Carter says. He turned to me in

my car and he looked at me and said,

fuck you guys. I don't need you anymore.

I've got the money from the political

action committees. I've got the power of

the office, and I've got the Atlanta

news media here in the palm of my hand.

I don't need any of you anymore.

Unquote. Oh my God, what a bitch. Yeah.

Such an asshole. I was like, yes, I

know. Now that I've moved my. Up the

ladder, I will simply step on your face.

Fuck you. Thanks for all your help.

Now, before we get into Newt heading

north to take over Washington, D.C.

let's take a moment to talk about the

end of his first marriage. I know it's

gonna shock you. It didn't work out

between, about, between the high school

math teacher and her former student.

Oh, it's. Yeah, I'm shocked.

So only 18 months after he put out an ad

promising to keep his family together,

filed for divorce. This. By this

point, Jackie had undergone cancer

treatments, put up with Newt's multiple

affairs, and still actively campaigned

for her husband and presented him as

this church going family guy. But now

this from the PBS documentary, quote,

New did one. By shedding his old

politics and his old profile and many of

his old friends, the reformers, the

environmentalists, the liberals, would

feel betrayed. And Jackie, the loyal

political wife, would soon be discarded

as well. A little more than a year

later, Newt demanded a divorce. Now this

is from Reverend Brantley Harwell,

Gingrich's minister. Jackie did

not want the divorce and,

and was humiliated. Bitter,

angry. Yeah, yeah. No. Now this is

Lee Howell. She was in the hospital and

that you came to visit her.

And while he was visiting her, he pulled

out his legal pad and wanted to talk

about the divorce settlement. As he was

fixing to leave, the girls were there,

he was fixing to leave and ask her if

they might discuss some of the division

of the property and alimony and that

kind of thing. And that's when she

really got angry. And I can see Jackie

getting angry. I can see any woman

getting angry. She's already angry,

anguished enough. Unquote. Oh, my God,

he's such a piece of. Yeah, he literally

had come in there and had hit like

demands for what he wanted out of the

divorce and wanted her to sign it on his

legal pad in while she was bedridden

right after getting a tumor yanked out

of her. Now, I will say this about this

incident because this one became kind of

an urban legend. And to this day, there

are lots of stories about Newt serving

Jackie with divorce papers on her

deathbed. This story became so infamous

that their daughter, Jackie Cushman,

wrote a short article titled Setting the

record straight in 2011 that pointed out

that her mother was still alive at the

time of that writing and that the

divorce was already underway at the time

of this infamous incident. When Newt

pulled out the legal pad so he couldn't

even just wait for his wife to die. He

had to humiliate out of the hospital.

He had to be shitty to her first. Yeah,

well, I mean, she didn't die for

decades, okay? She, in fact, as you'll

see, the article is clearly damage

control for her father without resorting

to lying, which is why it's short and

sweet. But fuck Newt. Again, from the

documentary, and this is Kip Carter,

former treasurer, speaking. Okay. It

wasn't long after that that, you know,

Jackie was supposed to be getting

alimony and child support and he refused

to pay. And so Jackie and the kids were

down there in that house with no food

and, you know, electricity and water and

all that sort of stuff. So at the First

Baptist Church and some other places in

town, we took up money and we took up

canned food and took it down to the

house so that she could keep the lights

on and keep the kids fed. What a piece

of shit. Again, I don't need you

anymore. He's the worst fucking person.

I mean, he did that to his daughter and

then decades later, she writes this

article to try to soft pedal defend him.

Yeah, well, you too, then. But, yeah,

sorry. So when asked by reporter David

Osborne about his soulless hypocrisy,

Newt's defense sounded like this quote.

I think there is a level of personal

life that is personal. I had married my

high school math teacher two days after

I was 19. In some ways it was a

wonderful relationship, particularly in

the early years. But we had gone through

a series of problems with which I regard

I think legitimately as private, but

which were real. There is an 11 year

history prior to my finally breaking

down. And short of someone writing a

psychological biography of me, I don't

think it's relevant, unquote. Oh,

so his personal life isn't relevant

because he's a man, but that other

ladies was 100%. Everybody else is

fucking fair game. Yeah, I see.

It's not fair to judge Newt for getting

blown at all of his campaign rallies

with his girls over being babysat by an

aide. Well, I mean, he just left him to

starve. Fuck this guy. Fuck this guy.

So hard for single mothers everywhere.

Fuck you. Folks back in Carrollton,

Georgia were disgusted by Newt's 180 on

being a family man. Yeah, no shit.

Immediately, he was getting a divorce

right after he got elected. The reporter

Mary Kahn described him. Newt uses

people and then discards them as

useless. He's like a leech. He really is

a man with no conscience. He just

doesn't seem to care who he hurts or

why. Yeah, I agree. That was 1984.

But don't you worry about Newt getting

lonely though. Six months after his

divorce was. Finally, he married a

pretty 28 year old blue eyed brunette he

met at a fundraiser in Ohio. Marianne

Ginther. This is the woman

I had pancakes with every Saturday for

one fateful college semester. And I

can tell you this, her attitude toward

him shifted from the beginning to the

point where I met her. I'm sure it did.

Burning down the House describes their

early relationship. Quote, gingrich

loved the fact that Marianne believed

everything he said, finding his promises

to remake American politics persuasive

and exciting. Unquote. Yeah, he was a

real good liar. Yeah. His first wife was

older than him and probably is way less

impressed with his bullshit. And now he

wanted somebody who hung in his every

word and thought he was, you know, a

genius. Yeah. And again, that's probably

why this is not going to work out.

What, you don't think this one, you

don't think this is true love number

two? I think the only true love Newt

Gingrich has is Newt Gingrich. So in

one of just many, many acts of stunning

hypocrisy, in 1983, the future speaker

called for two members of Congress to be

expelled for having affairs with House

pages. When called out, he said this

quote, I would say to you unequivocally

that it would probably sound pious and

sanctimonious saying it. I am a sinner.

I am a normal person. I am like everyone

else I have ever met. One of the reasons

I go to God is I ain't very good. I'm

not perfect. Oh, you're not

perfect. It's cool when you do it, but

it's totally not cool when somebody

else. Other people should be fired for

this sort of thing. Even though I, I am

literally doing it right around the

corner right now all the time. Mm.

Yeah. What a piece of shit. So Newt's

personal life was a mess, and it seems

that his rise to power did not make him

one bit happier. Good. He gained weight,

but then dieted because he knew it

wasn't great to gain weight when you're

a politician getting on tv, so. And he

hated dieting, so he was in a bad mood.

His early partners in political

campaigns had been replaced by yes men,

who hung in his every word and acted

like every shallow catchphrase was

written on granite by God. God himself.

And he couldn't stand them losing his

temper at them over and over again and

then writing apology notes. And then the

whole thing happening again. President

Ronald Reagan was riding a wave of

popularity after a lunatic shot him for

the love of Jody Foster and was able to

push through huge tax cuts, the ones

that Newt had been cheerleading for

years. Newt celebrated when the

president fired the striking air traffic

controllers, which has never been a bad

idea, has never caused us any problems

ever. Fucking hate it. Like, we've never

recovered from Reagan doing that. And

now we're at crisis levels where

airports are literally shutting down

because we don't have them. Yep, there

was deregulation and more military

spinning. Just one thing after another

on Newt's dream checklist that would

never, ever cause any problems for us or

our country or the economy. Just nothing

but winds up. And from then all the way

to now. Yeah, yeah,

sure. In the Wall street journal in

1981, Newt had made a prediction.

Quote, we have the chance to bring about

a half century of right of center

government, unquote. And it pisses

me off that he was right. I mean,

that's exactly what we've had. Yeah,

yeah. Now had, you know, Good near

fucking 50 years. Yeah. And it sucks.

It sucks where the best we get is some

neoliberals just sort of doing a few

things over here and over here, a little

nudge here, a little nudge there,

because they're all fucking corporate

goons. When political consultant Mark

Rosenberg asked him about his goals as a

member of the House, Newt didn't talk

about legislation or taxation or

accomplishments he wants. He only said

one thing. Quote. His immediate answer

was his objective was to become speaker

of the House. And with that goal,

his North Star right there, firmly on

the horizon. That is all the Newt we

have for today. Oh, so I'm just going

to be screaming into the void until next

time. Yeah. So tune in next time to find

out about how Mr. Gingrich torched all

the old standards and norms on Capitol

Hill and created a precedent of using

ethics investigations to destroy fellow

politicians, something that would

absolutely, deliciously bite him in the

ass. And in between that, you wait to

hear a little bit about the college

course I took. That was all part of his

downfall. So thank you everybody for

listening. And again, thank you to Kevin

and Raven Sound Studios, even though

you're currently under construction.

Yeah, we'll be. I hope it's up and

running soon. We miss you, Kevin. Yep,

see you soon. There's visit

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Normally we do a little charity round

here, but I'm doing something a little

differently today because we're going

through some rough times as a country

and as a world. So instead of giving out

like a specific charity with a link like

I usually do, I'm encouraging you just

to go look at your local homeless

shelters and food pantries and find out

ways you can either help out with direct

gifts or you can give some time and help

out directly. Yeah, I think the Never

Alone food pantry is the one located

in Cherokee County. That's cool. There

is more food and housing insecurity than

we've seen in a long time, so we just

need to watch each other's backs and

local is often the best way to help.

Yep. Hopefully you know, the world won't

end, but don't worry before Newt can be

finished. Yeah. Next time you get to

find out how Newt helped try to destroy

the welfare state entirely.

Bye bye.