Gingrich: Voters agreed coverage of ex-wife ‘totally inappropriate’

Newt Gingrich said Sunday that the media’s stories about his second ex-wife and her claims he asked for an "open marriage" had not had a negative impact on his campaign in the eyes of South Carolina voters.

“I think what you saw was that the people of South Carolina agreed that it was totally inappropriate,” Gingrich said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.

ABC News reported Thursday, two days before the Palmetto state GOP primary, that Gingrich’s second wife Marianne Gingrich said the former speaker had asked for an open marriage, and it was the first question of CNN’s debate that evening.

Gingrich launched into an attack on CNN moderator John King for focusing on the issue, which drew loud applause from the debate audience.

Gingrich said he was “amazed” at the debate audience response on Thursday when they cheered his attack on the media’s stories about second marriage.

“It was particularly powerful in the CNN debate,” Gingrich said “I was amazed at how intense the feeling was that night when people just repudiated that kind of trash in a presidential campaign.”

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