Gingrich delights in ‘hysterical’ reaction to his youth employment plan

Newt Gingrich again defended his call to put young Americans to work, and seemed to delight in the fact that, as he put it, “the reaction of the left has been hysterical.”

“[If] people learn the culture of work and learn the culture of saving and learn the idea of value over time, we just made this country dramatically more conservative. And so the left goes nuts,” he said.

He’s risen to the top of the GOP field in the presidential race, but Gingrich’s advocacy for allowing a form of youth employment has struck some as the kind of statement that would undermine him in a general election.

Gingrich has called child labor laws “stupid,” arguing that particularly in inner cities there is a need for children to appreciate what it means to work for money.

“I believe that it’s really important for children to learn to work,” he said, to some applause, at the end of his remarks at a candidates forum hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Gingrich otherwise offered crowd-pleasing promises on foreign policy, including an executive action he’d take on his first day as president: to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jersualem.

He also said he’d nominate former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as his secretary of State, and said the U.S. needs to dramatically rethink its policy to toward the Middle East.