CHRIS WALLACE (HOST): Speaker Gingrich, I think it's fair to say that you're no fan of Al Franken, but you had an interesting reaction to him being pushed out. You said this, quote, “This is a party which is losing its mind,” talking about the Democrats, “they suddenly curled into this weird puritanism which feels a compulsion to go out and lynch people without a trial.” Question, why was this a lynching?
NEWT GINGRICH: He's never faced his accusers. He's never had due process. He's never had an opportunity to clear his name. Suddenly, and you saw it in the way you described it, suddenly all of the social pressure of the left and the Democratic Party came together, made it inappropriate for him to stay. Now, a million people had elected him and 30 people decided he was inappropriate. Now they haven't decided that Bob Menendez, by the way, was a much more interesting story to tell, is inappropriate. This is purely and simply hysteria.
WALLACE: Is it also politics? It was interesting because I asked the two congresswomen, they backed away from that. Do think the Democrats trying to make this an issue?
GINGRICH: Maybe between -- I was told by a reporter who really tries to pay attention to this stuff that to some extent the blowback on Nancy Pelosi when she tried to defend John Conyers was so intense from the left that everybody else on the left said lynch mobs are in this week, let's go lynch somebody, Franken is available. The thing that's amazing to me, here is a guy who wrote number one best seller, Giant of the Senate, supposedly a very funny book. He's a comedian. We all know he's a comedian, he was a comedian before he ran. And he just crumbles under the social pressure. I mean, there was no objective force to kick him out. He wasn't going to be expelled, he just couldn't take the social ostracism.
