Newt Gingrich raves that Trump is just like Theodore Roosevelt

Historian and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has found a historical comparison for President Trump.

During an appearance on Fox & Friends on Monday, Gingrich said there are a lot of similarities between Trump and former President Theodore Roosevelt. That's because, in Gingrich's view, they both defy the mainstream "model of the presidency" thanks to a kindred "aggressive" and "entrepreneurial" spirit that often baffles (or baffled in Roosevelt's case) the media or academic experts.

Among the accomplishments of Roosevelt that Gingrich cited in an attempt to illustrate the similarities between the two presidents were the creation of the Rough Riders fighting force during the Spanish-American War, his conservation efforts, the naval histories he wrote in his 20s, the Nobel Peace Prize he won for brokering peace between Russia and Japan in 1906, and the construction of the Panama Canal.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

It's questionable whether Trump can match that acumen — for instance, he famously avoided the draft during the Vietnam War because of bone spurs, and while he has published books, including the well-known Trump: The Art of the Deal, Gingrich described Roosevelt's tome on the naval war of 1812 as the "classic study" on the topic. A Nobel prize has also so far eluded Trump, though he's made little secret of the fact he desires one. Tim O'Donnell