FOXNews Transcript: Newt Gingrich: Old Guard Out to Get Me

Gingrich rationalizes his beating during the last Florida debate, Thursday:

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, last night, I should tell you that we all thought you were going to come out swinging, and you seemed a little more sober to -- your responses to some of the things that Governor Romney said about your record.

GINGRICH: Well, actually, Mitt was so systematically dishonest...

VAN SUSTEREN: Is that lying?

GINGRICH: Well, I'll let you decide. But he -- the easiest example is he said that he only voted for Tsongas in the Democratic primary because there was no Republican primary. And during the debate, Larry Sabato tweeted that that was baloney, that, in fact, George H. W. Bush and Pat Buchanan were on the very same day.

VAN SUSTEREN: Could he have just a faulty memory?

GINGRICH: Well, he's said enough different things that it strikes me as implausible. I think -- I think that the governor says what he needs to say to get through this minute without remembering that there's a tomorrow.

 Which is it? The media is for you or against you:

VAN SUSTEREN: But is it enough for to you say in a debate -- and I know that have you some ads, as well -- is the media with you, do you think, or against you on this?

GINGRICH: I think on this one, oddly enough, the media's with me. And the reason is I think the media is kind of amazed at the level of dishonesty. I mean, I've done three or four interviews today where people have gone, How could he think he can get away with this? I mean, it'll be interesting to watch them when they go talk to Romney because some of these are so factually clearly false that it's very hard for him to claim anything except he just wasn't telling the truth.

Now he knows what it's like being a lawyer:

VAN SUSTEREN: What's he like to you before the debate, during breaks, and after the debate?

GINGRICH: We're collegial. I mean, it's -- you've been a lawyer. It's a little bit like lawyers in the middle of a trial.

VAN SUSTEREN: Oh, no, I never -- I mean, if I was mad at somebody, I was not collegial.

(LAUGHTER)

VAN SUSTEREN: I was not collegial! Believe me, if I thought someone was doing me wrong, I was not collegial. I would be in that person's face.

GINGRICH: No, I think -- I think you -- and this is part of why I debate the way I do. I think you have to, as a potential president, maintain a standard of dignity, or people think you're not capable of being president.

People want a sense of stability because the level of power we give presidents is so great that you want a sense of, This is a person -- it's a little bit like hiring a school bus driver. You don't want to hire a person who might take the bus off a cliff. You want to hire a person who's going to be safe with your children. Well, the president, in that sense, has 305 million people to be safe with.

 Read the full transcript