Newt: NBC News Owes My Wife an Apology

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Tonight: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is calling President Obama insensitive and uncaring. Now, it all started yesterday when President Obama either joked or admitted, take your pick, that "shovel-ready" was not as shovel-ready as he thought. Speaker Gingrich says those comments on the $800 billion stimulus plan show President Obama is out of touch.

Former Speaker of the House, presidential candidate, author of the brand-new book "A Nation Like No Other," Newt Gingrich joins us. Good evening, Mr. Speaker. And before we get to the shovel-ready comments that the president made, I'm curious if you have any response to the report by NBC that it is your wife, Callista, that essentially blew up your campaign and is the reason for the exodus -- or the exit of senior staff members.

NEWT GINGRICH, R-GEORGIA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE/FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: Greta, I'm really glad you asked about that because you know Callista. We've spent time together. Like you, she's a cheesehead from Wisconsin. Like you, she bowls.

I just want the American people to know that Callista graduated as a piano major. She's played in the city of Fairfax band on the French horn since 1989. She sings in the basilica of the national shrine (INAUDIBLE) Immaculate Conception choir. She's the head of Gingrich Productions and has helped make seven different documentaries, one of which, about Pope John Paul II, was picked as one of the top three films by the Vatican this year about the pope. She chairs a foundation which has given away $800,000 to charities. And she's currently writing a children's book, in which Ellis the elephant introduces 5 to 8-year-olds to a sweet land of liberty, the history of America.

I say that as background because I thought NBC this morning, in a program that had nobody on camera, nobody quoted by name, that quoted reporters talking anonymously about cowardly people, who, frankly, lied about my wife -- and I believe NBC owes Callista an apology.

The fact is, my campaign is my campaign. Yes, we make decisions as a couple, but in the end, I take full responsibility. And I think the program this morning was totally irresponsible and personally reprehensible and the kind of thing that makes it hard to get decent people to run for public office.