Interrupted In Iowa; The Gingrich Pledge
COSTELLO (voice-over): Occupying Gingrich. The Republican front-runner interrupted in Iowa and under attack on this</s>AMERICAN MORNING. ROMANS: And welcome back. It's half past the hour. Time for the morning's top stories. The Iraq War is now over. Earlier this morning, a ceremony in Baghdad brought the nearly nine-year long conflict to an end. Only a few thousand troops now remain in Iraq.</s>COSTELLO: Senate Democrats are caving in their demand for a millionaire's surtax. They are now preparing a compromise deal to extend the payroll tax cut and avoid inflicting a $1,000 tax hike on the 160 million working Americans. Leaders of both parties met privately at the capitol last night.</s>ROMANS: And it's also a marker for the Oscars. Nominations for the 69th Golden Globe Awards will be announced just over an hour from now. We are going to bring that ceremony live.</s>COSTELLO: Newt Gingrich has been around long enough to know how things work in politics. When you are on top, everyone wants a piece of you. Conservatives have been challenging his credentials. Mitt Romney just called him zany. And yesterday things got personal with "Occupy Iowa" demonstrators.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have taken -- to get your millions publishing your books and marketing them and it seems like have you --</s>NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How would you know?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- cheating on your wife.</s>GINGRICH: How would you -- other than -- other than -- other than personal hostility, which is understandable but not part of the academic experience. How would you know anything about how I published and sold books?</s>COSTELLO: That "Occupy Iowa City" demonstrator who took on Gingrich is joining us live from Iowa City this morning. His name is Mauro Heck. Mauro, thanks for being here.</s>MAURO HECK, OCCUPY IOWA CITY PROTESTER: You're welcome.</s>COSTELLO: I just want to make sure that people heard exactly what you said. You said Gingrich had, what, a PhD in cheating on his wife. You didn't really finish your question, though. Did you have one?</s>HECK: Yes. My question to him now was something -- going to be on the lines of since you have a PhD in wife cheating, are you still biblically qualified to be a candidate?</s>COSTELLO: What were you hoping to accomplish by heckling Gingrich in this way?</s>HECK: He is a big target, as you well know and I think Occupy -- Iowa City, although it is a small group for us here, small college town, we just wanted to have him hear us.</s>COSTELLO: Gingrich said, I think after you left, but I'm not quite sure about that because maybe you heard it, he said and I quote, "I appreciate the fact that 95 percent of you, maybe even 99 percent of you, wanted to actually have an intelligent discussion and are not going to be drowned out by the 1 percent who impose their will by making noise." Wouldn't it have been more educational, for lack after better word, term, for to you just listen to what Gingrich had to say and then challenge him after the speech?</s>HECK: Well, I think that this make check, what we call it with the Occupy Movement, has become a -- gets the message out there and so -- that's what we did. We believe in that. I agree it is slightly rude in some ways. It is slightly uncivil, but sometimes free speech has to be uncivil and has to be rude.</s>COSTELLO: You were criticizing Newt Gingrich's three marriages. Is that really important, you know, in a president of the United States that he -- you know, is faithful to his wife?</s>HECK: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, 1994, 1995, he was cheating on his wife and he -- he wants to -- the Congress like he's a saint and try to get Clinton impeached while he's, you know -- while Clinton was having a little affair with Monica. He was cheating on his wife and being a big hypocrite about it.</s>COSTELLO: So it's -- it is not Newt Gingrich's infidelity, past infidelity. It is more that he is hypocritical about it as far as Bill Clinton is concerned? Do you condemn Bill Clinton as well for his infidelity?</s>HECK: Absolutely. It is just -- it is just that that was just an issue I personally have a problem with so many politicians. That does not -- I don't think the Republicans have a monopoly of that. That goes for a lot of the Democrats as well. If not -- most of them. A lot of these politicians have just -- hypocritical. You know, watching out for their own backs, re- electing themselves. Making sure that the money is flowing from all kinds of venues and that's what this country has become. It is not a democracy anymore at the national level.</s>COSTELLO: Just on the fidelity question once again, why can't a man be an effective leader if he has been married more than one time?</s>HECK: Well, I think it goes beyond that. I think it is the double talk. You know, if I am cutting down forests and I go about criticizing people who are doing the same thing. That just does not bode well to a person who should be in a position of leadership like that.</s>COSTELLO: Mauro Heck, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We appreciate.</s>HECK: Thank you.</s>COSTELLO: Let's bring in cnn.com contributor, Ruben Navarrette right now. He has a new piece online this morning. Looking at these attacks on Gingrich's personal life. First of all, thanks for being with us, Ruben.</s>RUBEN NAVARRETTE, COLUMNIST, CNN.COM CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you, Carol. Great to be with you again.</s>COSTELLO: OK, you just heard Mauro, but you have a completely different view of fidelity.</s>NAVARRETTE: Right.</s>COSTELLO: As to how it applies to a leader.</s>NAVARRETTE: Right. Well, first, you try to get out of this heckler named Heck that somehow there was a purpose for this. What was your goal? The goal was simply to embarrass Gingrich and get publicity for the "Occupy Iowa Movement." If he really, I guess, cared about some of the principles of the movement, he would go and some of the people that helped caused the crisis that formed the Occupy Movement to begin with. Beyond that, in terms of infidelity, in the issue of infidelity, I don't think we have any sort of evidence that says just because Bill Clinton was, for instance a bad husband, that makes him a bad president. If you flip that coin over, how do you then begin to argue that somehow Newt Gingrich's infidelity would make him a bad president? That's a line of attack. It's a popular line of attack that some of his opponents are using in the GOP primary, but I don't think it makes sense.</s>COSTELLO: Well, this is what I've heard of people. It is not just the fact that Newt Gingrich has been married three times. It is how he left his two previous wives. When they were in great need, he just left and he cheated on them. They say somehow that makes on huge difference.</s>NAVARRETTE: Right. It goes to character, but there's a whole bunch of things that go to character and, you know, the one thing that I found interesting in the interview that you just did was the idea of hypocrisy is a very powerful point. I like what Ron Paul said during the last debate where he said I worry a lot more about people that break their oath of office. So think about this. If you have someone who has been faithful to their wife, but break their oath of office, the oath that they made to the rest of us, you know that's a pretty deal and a pretty big slam against them. So I think there are lots of things that go to character. I just want to give anybody a pass. Just because you have been faithful to your wife for 40 or 50 years, doesn't mean you get to slam the rest of us and we will turn away and ignore it. So I think it is much more complicated than those Republican primary candidates would have us believe.</s>COSTELLO: So what do you make of Newt Gingrich's public repenting and the pledge he took promising to uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity?</s>NAVARRETTE: Carol, that really shocked me because, you know, in all these debates, one thing you like about Gingrich, I like about Gingrich and I see in Gingrich, he likes to fight. He does -- not flappable. He is not someone that's -- get under his skin very easily. You saw it in that clip you showed. He can handle hecklers. He likes it. He relishes it. The fact that somehow in Iowa, they driven home that point to him that your past infidelity, your marriage failures, could hurt you with these conservative voters. That has gotten Gingrich's attention and that really is what struck me about this marriage pledge. The fact that we have finally sort of discovered Newt Gingrich's soft spot, it's this very issue and that's why he came forward with this pledge.</s>COSTELLO: It is interesting because some people might think that, you know, you have to be so pure to run for president star having a perfect marriage and perfect children that it is keeping good candidates from running for office. I can bring up former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.</s>NAVARRETTE: Right. There are lots of good politicians out there. Mitch Daniels is a great one who likewise says I don't want to put my family through this. I think Mitt Romney, though, some of the opponents of Newt Gingrich are on a losing campaign here. Because when you really think about it, they are talking to a country of imperfect people. You know, those of us who are married and have been married before, you know, we struggle with this. Marriage is not easy. And likewise you may fail in business. You might fail at any number of things. Basically, what Gingrich is saying to his opponents in the next debate tonight -- OK, tell you what. You guys take all the votes of all the perfect people who never made any mistakes in this country and I will take all the votes of the others and guess what, Gingrich wins in a landslide.</s>COSTELLO: OK, you mentioned Mitt Romney and what he is saying about Newt Gingrich these days. He called him zany. Let's listen.</s>MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Zany is great in a campaign. It is great on talk radio. It is great in the print. It beats -- makes for fun reading. But in terms of a president, we need a leader and a leader needs to be someone that can bring Americans together.</s>COSTELLO: OK, so zany. That's such a strange adjective.</s>NAVARRETTE: I feel bad for Mitt Romney. You don't hear me say that often on your show, but I do because he doesn't know what to be anymore. He doesn't know what line of attack to pick up. In the last debate, he said that Newt Gingrich was a bomb thrower, incendiary. That's a serious person who's a bomb thrower. Now we are told he's zany. Not so serious person. Romney just wants to be president. He wants to beat Gingrich and he doesn't know how to do it so he is throwing everything he can up he can at the wall even contradictory statements and hoping they all stick. One last thing, this idea of dividing Americans, this is the same Mitt Romney who put an ad up in New Hampshire attacking Rick Perry for his position on illegal immigration where he likened Rick Perry to the president of Mexico. If that's not divisive, I don't know what is. Mitt Romney is a hypocrite.</s>COSTELLO: Wow. Ruben Navarrette, thank you so much for your thoughts this morning. If you would like to read more, your column will be posted online on cnn.com/opinion, right?</s>NAVARRETTE: Yes, that's right. Thanks, Carol.</s>COSTELLO: OK, thanks, Ruben. Coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING, we will take a look at what Americans can learn today from one of the worst times in our financial history, the great depression. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. It's 40 minutes past the hour.