Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) ripped President Obama for not meeting with world leaders on his trip to the United Nations on Friday, saying Obama is “not a real president.”
“[Obama] really is like the substitute [National Football League] referees in the sense that he’s not a real president,” Gingrich told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News Tuesday night. “He doesn’t do anything that presidents do, he doesn’t worry about any of the things the presidents do, but he has the White House, he has enormous power, and he’ll go down in history as the president, and I suspect that he’s pretty contemptuous of the rest of us.”
President Obama condemned the violent protests that have swept through the Middle East and offered a defense of free speech in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Tuesday.
Republicans criticized the president for not meeting with world leaders on the trip, but for having time to tape an interview on ABC’s talk show “The View.”
Gingrich called Obama a “false president,” saying he has a propensity to shirk his duties.
“This is a man who in an age of false celebrity-hood is sort of the perfect president, because he’s a false president,” he said. “He’s a guy that doesn’t do the president’s job.”
Gingrich questioned whether Obama has the stamina and desire to be president.
“You have to wonder what he’s doing,” Gingrich continued. “I’m assuming that there’s some rhythm to Barack Obama that the rest of us don’t understand. Whether he needs large amounts of rest, whether he needs to go play basketball for a while or watch ESPN, I mean, I don’t quite know what his rhythm is, but this is a guy that is a brilliant performer as an orator, who may very well get reelected at the present date, and who, frankly, he happens to be a partial, part-time president.”
