Newt Gingrich raves that Trump is just like Theodore Roosevelt

published 13 April 2020

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.

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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

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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