The top things Gingrich said on "Hardball"

AP Photo/Chuck Burton

(CBS News) In an interview on MSNBC's "Hardball," former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich sat down with host Christ Matthews in a lengthy, frank and fast-paced conversation. Here are some of the funny, provocative, or odd exchanges Gingrich had with Matthews:

Gingrich on how Mitt Romney beat him in Florida after Gingrich's win in South Carolina: "When you have somebody who's tough enough to look you in the eye and run over you.... He was in a situation where everything he had ever done was going to disappear if I beat him in Florida. And so he said, 'Look, I got two choices. I can throw the kitchen sink at Gingrich... or I can be a nice guy and not be the nominee.'"

[thebob-bob]

What the "Team Player" really thinks of the Captain:

1. He's a liar. CBS' "The Early Show," January 3, 2012
Gingrich: "Well, you seem shocked by it! This is a man whose staff created the PAC, his millionaire friends fund the PAC, he pretends he has nothing to do with the PAC - it's baloney. He's not telling the American people the truth..."
"I just think he ought to be honest with the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points, and I think he ought to be candid. I don't think he's being candid and that will be a major issue. From here on out from the rest of this campaign, the country has to decide: Do you really want a Massachusetts moderate who won't level with you to run against Barack Obama who, frankly, will just tear him apart? He will not survive against the Obama machine."

2. He's not a conservative. CBS' "The Early Show," January 3, 2012
"It's just like this pretense that he's a conservative. Here's a Massachusetts moderate who has tax-paid abortions in 'Romneycare,' puts Planned Parenthood in 'Romneycare,' raises hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes on businesses, appoints liberal judges to appease Democrats, and wants the rest of us to believe somehow he's magically a conservative."

3. He can't win. Concord, N.H., Jan. 4, 2012
"I find it amazing the news media continues to say he's the most electable Republican when he can't even break out of his own party...The fact is, Gov. Romney in the end has a very limited appeal in conservative party."

4. His immigration reform plan is an "Obama level fantasy". Univision interview, Jan. 25, 2012
"Now, for Romney to believe that somebody's grandmother is going to be so cut off she is going to self deport? This verges - this is an Obama level fantasy. He certainly shows no concern for the humanity of people who are already here..."
"I think you have to live in worlds of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20 million a year income with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality."

5. He profits off the poor. CNN debate, Jan. 26, 2012.
"Maybe Governor Romney in the spirit of openness should tell us how much money he's made off of how many households that have been foreclosed by his investments."

6. He looted companies as head of Bain Capital. Manchester, NH, Jan. 9, 2012
"Now you have to ask a question - is that really, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that in fact somehow a little bit of a flawed system? And so I do draw distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighborhoods and then leaving a factory that should be there."

7. He's full of "pious baloney". NBC News/ Facebook debate, Jan. 8, 2012
"Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney? The fact is, you ran in '94 and lost. That's why you weren't serving in the Senate with Rick Santorum. The fact is, you had a very bad re-election rating, you dropped out of office, you had been out of state for something like 200 days preparing to run for president. You didn't have this interlude of citizenship while you thought about what you do. You were running for president while you were governor."

8. Romney's adviser was right to compare Romney to an etch-a-sketch
Lake Charles, La., March 21, 2012
"Now given everybody's fears about Gov. Romney's flip flops, to have his communications director say publicly to all of us, if we're dumb enough to nominate him we should expect by the acceptance speech he'll move back to the left, triggers everything people are worried about."
"Their pictures aren't permanent. There's nothing locked down. You can re-do every time you want. And that's the problem."

9. He's a timid leader who can't bring about change. Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 4, 2012
Romney's a "Massachusetts moderate who, in fact, is pretty good at managing the decay." He's "given no evidence in his years in Massachusetts of any ability to change the culture or change the political structure."

10. He's out of touch and thinks we're stupid. Mt. Dora, Fla. Jan. 26, 2012
"We're not going to beat Barack Obama with some guy who has Swiss bank accounts, Cayman Island accounts, owns shares of Goldman Sachs while it forecloses on Florida and is himself a stockholder in Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac while he tries to think the rest of us are too stupid to put the dots together to understand what this is all about."

[ohdecuda]

I don't believe him or the other lying Republicans who ran in the GOP primaries.

[RollotheNorman]

Yah, I saw it. I can't say that Newt the "deep thinking Perfessor" had much in the way of over powering logic as to why Willard should be "the man." Tepid. Some might see it as damning with faint praise. Although the Newtster seems to mouthing the right lines, he doesn't convince me his heart is in it.

[fedup12]

It would have been funny for Newt to win the primary.

[twinkyduster]

"On why he likes reptiles:" "They're astonishingly successful. They do it in a totally different way than we do, and they have been successful for a very long time."

As my pappy always said: "It takes one to know one!"