BURSTFormer Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Pa.) on Monday compared President-elect Trump to a “mythic figure," saying his rise to power and his resilience cannot be explained in the "normal" political world.
"Look, if you're a relatively sophisticated leader around the world, and you watch nine years of the rise of Donald Trump and you watch two impeachments and you watch all of these efforts to catch him in the law and you watch two assassination attempts, and the guy just keeps coming,” Gingrich said in an interview on Fox News’s “Hannity.”
“This is a mythic figure, almost like the various Scandinavian Beowulfs and other kind of sagas. I mean, you can't — there is no practical way that you can explain Trump within a normal political structure,” he added.
Gingrich cited a recent poll showing a significant majority of the country believes Trump “in fact, got a clear mandate” in the 2024 election, while less than a third of Americans say otherwise. Gingrich said that is a strong position from which to start his next term,.
“So he's beginning to build almost a two-to-one margin that this is the leader of the American nation, and if you're the rest of the world and you — people forget. We are an enormous country,” Gingrich said, adding, “We are the most powerful nation in the world. And this is the guy who is now coming back, and they all respect it, and they are, frankly, I think, stunned by it."
Trump defeated Vice President Harris in the election this year, winning 312 electoral votes compared to Harris’s 226. The popular vote was closer, with Trump winning 49.9 percent of the vote, compared to Harris’s 48.2 percent. Republicans also won both chambers in Congress.
Trump has said the election gives him an “unprecedented and powerful” mandate to govern.