In a Miami Herald interview, Newt Gingrich insisted he would keep pressure on Cuba’s Castro brothers and push for a “humane” immigration policy. He also defended his attacks against Mitt Romney.
Newt Gingrich talks to the Miami Herald during an interview at the Biltmore Hotel Thursday evening, January 12, 2012. The former Speaker of the House is trying to regain ground as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination ahead of Florida's primary at the end of January. He spoke one-on-one with the Herald's Marc Caputo.
Republican Newt Gingrich stopped in Miami on Thursday night to raise money, bash opponent Mitt Romney as a “Massachusetts moderate” and to position himself as the harshest critic of Cuba’s Castro regime.
Trailing in the presidential polls, Gingrich also swiped at Mitt Romney for “pandering to hardliners” over immigration and for touting potentially bogus job-creation figures.
Gingrich admitted he was “surprised” by the criticisms and outrage of fellow conservatives who faulted him for attacking Romney’s time at Bain Capital, a venture-capital firm that had profited on occasion from acquiring companies and laying people off.
To Fox’s Sean Hannity, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint and even comedian John Stewart, Gingrich sounded more like a Democrat than a Republican in leveling the charge.
“This is an absurdity,” Gingrich responded during an interview at the Biltmore Hotel where he had a fundraiser. “The over-reaction of people to questioning a presidential candidate’s record as though I was now engaged in an assault on free enterprise is one of the most absurd things I have ever seen.”
In a nod to the prevailing political sentiment of Miami-Dade’s Republican electorate — which is overwhelmingly Cuban-American — Gingrich also issued a series of specific promises and goals to crack down on the Castro dictatorship.
In a written statement, Gingrich pledged to fully implement the Helms-Burton Act that he helped pass in 1996 to allow people to sue “foreign entities that traffic in U.S. property.” And he said the United States should lift no sanctions until Cuba transitions to a democracy.He also wants to require the U.S. Justice Department to “reassess” the possibility of indicted Fidel and Raul Castro for the 1996 shoot down and “murder” of the Brothers to the Rescue activists.
Lastly, Gingrich said he wanted to re-establish the 2004 Bush Administration travel restrictions and that he wanted to review the decisions of the Obama and Clinton administrations executive orders related to Cuba travel and trade.
That last promise seems to conflict with his answer to Yahoo News in November, when he was asked: “President Obama has opened more air travel to the island. Would you shut down those flights?”
Said Gingrich: “No, but I would very aggressively move towards maximizing dissent inside Cuba. Mostly covert, and also just subsidies. Go back and look what we did in Poland for example when we aggressively supported Solidarity."
Gingrich’s comments led the influential exile blog, Capitol Hill Cubans, to declare that Gingrich was one of the “Weakest Candidates on Cuba Policy.”
Gingrich quickly replied: “I think I’m a long way from being weak on Cuba.”
He noted that he helped pass Helms-Burton and took credit for helping “develop the whole Radio Marti program.”
Some critics have questioned the special immigration rights of Cubans, but Gingrich said they should be allowed to stay.
Unlike some of his fellow Republicans, Gingrich has adopted a more moderate position on immigration. He said the border needs to be secured and the visa process “modernized.”
But he believes some longtime, generally law-abiding immigrants who aren’t here legally and have families should be given a path to permanent residency, but not citizenship.
Romney dismissed that as providing a “magnet” for illegal immigration.
“I don’t understand his position unless he was just pandering to hardliners,” Gingrich said. “I was prepared to take the heat to develop a rational program.”
Gingrich said he had a “humane” plan and that Romney didn’t.
“I was very surprised when Gov. Romney indicated he would deport everybody. I hope somebody down here would ask him: Is he envisioning breaking up families? Is he envisioning that it doesn’t matter that someone’s been here 25 years and has grandchildren,” he said.
Gingrich said he was “pleasantly surprised” that conservatives back his immigration plan, which hasn’t helped hobble his candidacy in the same way that it hurt Gov. Rick Perry.
The blowback over his criticisms about Bain, however, have been far more intense.
Gingrich said he was just vetting Romney. He said Romney, a “Massachusetts moderate” hides his record as governor because he was a “pro-abortion, pro-tax increase, pro-gun control.”
But, he said, when he started questioning Romney’s claims about job-creation at Bain, he was unexpectedly criticized.
“It’s a private company that doesn’t have any public information. So you get caught in this nice trap. He gets to assert it. Nobody gets to ask about it. And we’re supposed to trust him,” Gingrich said.
“If there’s nothing there, release it. If you’re not releasing it, is it because there’s something there? If you’re going to claim you created 100,000 jobs, why is it unfair to say a presidential candidate should have to meet their claim?”
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