Little Trump

Gingrich: Little Trump reacts to criticism 'almost uncontrollably'

By Nolan D. McCaskill

One of Donald Trump’s top surrogates all but described the Republican presidential nominee as a thin-skinned candidate whose weakness is that he lashes out “almost uncontrollably.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich explained his Big Trump, Little Trump analogy during an interview conducted Tuesday with the Washington Examiner’s David Drucker.

Gingrich said there’s a side of Little Trump’s personality that’s “very sensitive, particularly to anything which attacks his own sense of integrity or his own sense of respectability, and he reacts very intensely, almost uncontrollably, to those kinds of situations.”

“I think that’s a weakness,” he said on the “Examining Politics” podcast. “I hope he grows out of it.”

Gingrich first broached the tale of two Trumps in an interview with Fox Business Network last week, when he called Little Trump “frankly pathetic” for being upset over not getting a congratulatory phone call from House Speaker Paul Ryan following the second presidential debate.

In the podcast, Gingrich extolled Big Trump, whom he painted as a courageous outsider whose big thinking is changing American politics. “However, there’s also a part of his personality that sometimes gets involved in petty things that make no sense,” he conceded, “and I think that that’s what I was talking about when I talk about there’s a big Trump and a little Trump.”

“The big Trump is a historic figure talking about historic ideas. The little Trump gets involved at a personality level,” he said, pointing to the real estate mogul’s tweet in which he blasted “SNL” for its “hit job” and called for the “boring and unfunny show” to “retire.” Trump also attacked Trump impersonator Alec Baldwin, tweeting that his “portrayal stinks” and floating the unsubstantiated notion that the media are rigging the election.

“Well, if you’re gonna be president of the United States and a historic figure and not just change America but also change a lot about how we lead the world, you don’t descend to being the equivalent of Alec Baldwin,” Gingrich advised.

“But on balance,” Gingrich added, “he still remains a remarkable and a very formidable player.”