Newt Gingrich, who led the Republican Party as house speaker in the 1990s, believes Donald Trump is bringing Democrats over to the Republican side in 2016.
"I think Trump clearly is going to expand the party," Gingrich said in a Facebook Live video Tuesday. "Something is going on out there that is very powerful and very real.'
Gingrich, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, is rumored to be on Trump's list of possible vice presidential choices.
He had praise for Trumps list of 11 prospective Supreme Court appointees, noting that it represents "dramatically greater diversity" than the current high court. The nine justices at the time of Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February all came from either Harvard, Yale or Columbia law schools.
Trump, however, is "reaching out across the country" and even considering state court judges, Gingrich said.
Gingrich predicted the 2016 general election debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton will be "more hostile and more angry" than any of the debates on either side during the primary season because of the "genuine hostility between Clinton and Trump, which he said "will show up on the debate stage."
"I can't even being to imagine (how the debates will be)" he said. The Clinton-Trump debates could be about "high issues or "just be a mud bath."
