This movie’s not that old. It was released in 2010.
Newt, what happened? We knew you were kind of, well, a sleaze, but at least there was some evidence of a calculating, reptilian kind of intelligence there. Is there a lobotomy requirement for the Republican Primaries?
Newt Gingrich said tonight during Mike Huckabee’s presidential forum on Fox News that filming a climate change ad with Nancy Pelosi was a mistake, but is getting heat for insisting he never backed cap-and-trade – a general concept he described as “very very good” in a four-year-old interview.
“I’ve said publicly, sitting on the couch with Nancy Pelosi is the dumbest single thing I’ve done in the last few years – but if you notice, I’ve never favored cap and trade, and in fact I actively testified against it,” Gingrich said.
“I was at the U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee the same day Al Gore was there to testify for it, I testified against it and through American Solutions we fought it in the Senate and played a major role in defeating it.”
Gingrich did testify against it, but Paul’s camp and Perry’s team both noted this interview he gave in February 2007 to PBS’ Frontline.
The question was about a carbon cap pledge George Bush made in 2000, and Gingrich was asked whether he was for it at the time.
“I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good,” he said. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.”
Perry’s campaign emailed around that quote. And Paul adviser Jesse Benton emailed saying, “Every time Newt Gingrich opens his mouth, hypocrisy comes pouring out. This is exactly why our campaign released our now-viral web ad: so he can’t get away with changing his position on virtually every issue of consequence. Newt clearly supported Cap and Trade and used his influence to promote it.”
It’s true he’s never favored the approach taken by Democrats, but he said in 2007 that he would “strongly support” cap-and-trade if combined with “a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions”.
Furthermore, Gingrich said in House testimony in 2009 that he still might support a cap-and-trade system covering “the 2,000 most polluting places,” if packaged with incentives for nuclear power and “green coal,” among other things.
See below, key passage from an a 2007 appearance with John Kerry:
Below, the famous “couch” ad with Nancy Pelosi –