The Hill News

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay - a central figure in both Newt Gingrich's 1994 Republican Revolution and the 1997 "coup" that forced Gingrich's resignation - called Gingrich "erratic" and questioned his conservative credentials in a radio interview Wednesday.

"What has been said about Newt is pretty much true - he had to step down because the Republicans, the conservative Republicans wouldn't vote for him again as Speaker," DeLay said on the Michael Berry show.

DeLay was pressed as to why conservatives had abandoned Gingrich.

"Well, because he's not really a conservative," DeLay said. "I mean he'll tell you what you want to hear, he has a sort of uncanny ability, sort of like Clinton, to feel your pain and know his audience and speak to his audience and fire them up, but when he was Speaker, he was erratic."

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