Former Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in Brussels have “validated” businessman Donald Trump’s presidential run and his ability to handle foreign policy.
“Tragically, I think that the attacks in many ways validated Donald Trump’s entire candidacy,” the former Republican presidential candidate said Wednesday on Fox Business Network, The Hill reported.
“There are a lot of things with Trump that I can find at fault with, but one of his strengths is to read the obvious. He’s a little bit like [Former President Ronald] Reagan in that sense,” Mr. Gingrich added about the GOP presidential front-runner.
“[Mr. Trump] knew that the people who perpetrated the Paris atrocities, many of them had come from Brussels,” Mr. Gingrich continued. “He has business friends who go to and from the European Union in Brussels, and his business friends are saying to him, ’It’s out of control.’ So he reports the obvious, everybody else thinks he’s stupid because he’s the only guy saying it, and now here we are several months later.”
“The fact is, Donald Trump was right,” he said.
Mr. Trump was criticized in January when he said “there is something bad going on” in Brussels.
“There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on,” Mr. Trump said at the time. “You go to Brussels — I was in Brussels a long time ago, 20 years ago, so beautiful, everything is so beautiful — it’s like living in a hellhole right now.”
The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for killing at least 34 people and injuring hundreds of others in a string of coordinated blasts Tuesday at Brussels’ Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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