Newt Gingrich Says White People "Don't Understand Being Black in America"

Newt Gingrich spoke at a town hall and said white people "don't understand being black in America."

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is reportedly in the mix to be Donald Trump’s running mate and he’s staking his claim for the VP spot with some Olympic-worthy backpedaling. The same man who once referred to Palestinians as an “invented” people and labeled Obama as the “Food Stamp President” recently spoke out on race relations in America and, surprisingly, made a lot of sense.

"It took me a long time, and a number of people talking to me through the years to get a sense of this," he said during a town hall on Friday, according to the Los Angeles Times. "If you are a normal white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America.”

He then went on to discuss his time in Georgia in the early '60s. "It was still legally segregated, which meant the local sheriff and National Guard would impose, by force, the taking away of rights of Americans," he said. "We’ve come a fair distance, now we have a black mayor of Atlanta and have had a series of them, in fact...But we’ve stalled out on the cultural, economic, practical progress we needed."

This statement comes after Gingrich criticized Trump over his comments on Latino judge Judge Gonzalo Curiel. While overseeing a fraud lawsuit, Trump said Curiel was “a member of a club or society very strongly pro-Mexican” and thus can’t be impartial to him because of his border comments. It looks like a potential vice presidency changed Gingrich’s tune. He appeared at a Trump rally on Wednesday and confirmed that he is being vetted.

"If Trump offers the position, and is serious about it, which I think he would be after our conversations, Callista (his wife) and I would feel compelled to serve the country," he told the crowd.

Oh, and he still doesn’t like President Obama.

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