CNN 20: Gingrich Becomes GOP Speaker, December 5, 1994
BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, DECEMBER 5, 1994) REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: Our new speaker, the gentleman from Georgia, Newt Gingrich.</s>BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Newt Gingrich came to power with his Republican majority and the whole approach was confrontation. The Republicans who had come into office with him were highly ideological, very conservative, and they wanted to take on the liberals who had run the Congress of 40 years. And so there was this year of confrontation. But at the end of the year, the biggest confrontation was over how to fund the federal government, and the government shut down and stayed shut down for a while. The Republicans badly miscalculated. But Gingrich and the Republicans maintained their hold on the House of Representatives. Comes now, the next election. By this time, President Clinton is in the midst of impeachment. Somebody decided that it was time to come out and hammer President Clinton about his ethics problems, his impeachment problems. It backfired. It backfired so badly that they ended up with a teeny tiny majority and Gingrich so infuriated his fellow Republicans because of this tactic that he only lasted a couple of days, and before you knew it, he found out his Republicans were not going to back him. So he did the strategic thing and he decided that he would quit before he was quit. And so, just a few days after the election, he announced that he would not run for speaker again. He would resign as a matter of fact.