Gingrich confesses: Pelosi ad ‘the dumbest single thing I’ve done in years’

Newt owns up to his infamous climate ad with Nancy Pelosi.

The Daily Caller reports,

… on Tuesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, Gingrich — now a candidate for the Republican nomination for president — admitted it was a mistake for him to appear in the ad during the show’s “Center Seat” segment.

“First of all, that is probably the dumbest single thing I’ve done in years,” Gingrich said. “It is inexplicable that somebody used to say, ‘You know, there aren’t enough hay wagons to stand on to get people to understand that.’ You just need to relax and go, that was dumb.”

Panelist Charles Krauthammer asked Gingrich if he was being held hostage when the ad was filmed. Gingrich responded that he just made a mistake.

“No, that was dumb,” Gingrich said. “I was trying to do something I failed to do. I do think it’s important for conservative to be in the middle of the debate over the environment.”

Read The Daily Caller article.

The Gingrich-pelosi TV ad is below.

The transcript from the Fox News interview is below:

HAYES: Mr. Speaker, I want to stick with energy policy and play a clip from an ad that you stared just a couple of years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA) HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: We don’t always see eye to eye, do we, Newt?
GINGRICH: No. But we do agree the country should take action to address climate change.

PELOSI: We need cleaner form of energy and we need them fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That was striking that from me, striking ad for a lot of Republicans around the country. Is the earth warming? If so, why is it warming? And what is that urgent action we need to take?

GINGRICH: First, that is probably the dumbest single thing I’ve done. It is inexplicable that — somebody used to say, you know, there aren’t enough “A” wagons to stand on to get people to understand that. You just need to relax and go that was dumb.

KRAUTHAMMER: Were you held hostage?

GINGRICH: No. That was dumb. I was trying to do something I failed to do. I do think it’s important for conservative to be in the middle of the debate over the environment. I wrote a book with Terry Maple called contract with Europe, outlining a pro-market, pro-entrepreneur, innovative environmentalism.

Let me say first of all, this will probably get me in interesting arguments, I don’t know whether global warming is occurring. The vast majority of National Academy of Science says it is, a minority says it is not. Science is not actually voted on. It’s a function of truth.

What I do know is that if you look at exactly what was said in that ad, finding innovative new ways to get cleaner energy ought to be something most Americans feel comfortable with. I testified against cap and trade the same day Al Gore testified in favor. American Solutions fought to defeat it in the Senate. I do not think you should have a gigantic central government model of solution.

HAYES: Did you back then believe in warming, or no?

GINGRICH: No. Back then I said look, I’m an amateur paleontologist. The earth temperatures go up and down over geologic times over and over again. As recently 11,000 years ago the gulf stream quit for 600 years. And for 600 years we had an ice age in Europe because there was no warm water. Then it started up. Nobody knows why it quit or started up. So I’m agnostic.
But I say to all of my conservative friends, don’t assume automatically the entire National Academy of Sciences is wrong. And I’d say to the National Academy don’t assume that vote by renowned scientists is necessarily true.

Click for a video clip of the the Fox News interview.