Newt Gingrich Reveals ‘Obvious’ Fix For Congressional Spending Battle

Newt Gingrich has been around Washington long enough to see plenty of brushes with government shutdowns, and he’s offering U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) a path to salvage his speakership and appease conservatives at the same time.

The former House Speaker told Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Wednesday that Johnson has no good reason for trying to ram through a continuing resolution that funds the government until March of next year. Instead, Gingrich explained, the Republican leader should amend his strategy by seeking a “short continuing resolution” that only lasts long enough until President-elect Donald Trump and Republican majorities in the House and Senate can take office, at which point a balanced budget can be sought. He also credited Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy for drawing attention to bloated spending initiatives inside Johnson’s CR, which were included to appease Democrats.

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“Well, I think, first of all, the whole idea of the DOGE Committee has already paid for itself by having Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy begin to point out all the dumb things in this bill,” Gingrich said, according to the Daily Caller. “The obvious answer is, kill this bill, pass a very short continuing resolution to get the new Republican Senate installed, and negotiate a new bill before January 20 that covers the rest of the year and gets the job done.”

Johnson’s first mistake was assuming he could work fairly with Democrats to fund the government, Gingrich said on “Jesse Watters Tonight.” He intimated that shutting down the government may be necessary if liberal lawmakers insist on adding “dumb things” like Covid-era spending to legislation that shouldn’t do more than simply keep the lights on. “But it also, I would just say two things will be sort of, I think, radical for Washington. One, when you negotiate with Democrats, they’re going to put stupid things in the bill. So there’s a big disadvantage every time you let them help write the bill, because everybody on your side is going to think the bill is stupid,” Gingrich said.

“Second, we closed the government several times while I was Speaker. We would not have gotten to a balanced budget if we had not had the guts to go to the mat and say, ‘No, we’re not going to do dumb things,’ which was a great shock to Bill Clinton and a great shock to the Democrats. But the country thought, you know, it’s good not to do dumb things,” Gingrich added. “So I would hope that Republicans in the House and Senate will take seriously the warnings of President Trump and of Vivek Ramaswamy and of Elon Musk.”

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President-elect Trump voiced his concerns about Johnson’s bill on Wednesday, writing on Truth Social urging the House speaker to pursue a hike in the debt ceiling before the end of President Joe Biden’s term. “If Republicans try to pass a clean Continuing Resolution without all of the Democrat “bells and whistles” that will be so destructive to our Country, all it will do, after January 20th, is bring the mess of the Debt Limit into the Trump Administration, rather than allowing it to take place in the Biden Administration,” said Trump, warning Republicans of repercussions if they failed to act. “Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be Primaried. Everything should be done, and fully negotiated, prior to my taking Office on January 20th, 2025.”

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