Gingrich: Xi attending Trump inauguration would be ‘signal to the planet’

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) responded to President-elect Trump's invitation to Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the January inauguration, saying his acceptance would send a global "signal."

“Look, I think Trump believes in constant offense, constant momentum, keeping things going forward,” Gingrich told Fox New's Jesse Watters in an interview Wednesday.

“I think he gets up every day and tries to figure out, you know, ‘Let’s go to McDonald’s or let’s go to the garbage truck,’ whatever it takes but he wants to be on offense,” he continued. “I suspect he woke up, looked around and thought, ‘Yeah, I think my good friend Xi Jinping, we haven’t been together in a long time, why don’t I…?’”

His comments come after Trump extended the invitation to Xi in November, shortly after he won the election, but it wasn’t clear if the Chinese leader had accepted it, CBS News reported. The president-elect’s team has also raised the possibility of other global leaders attending the transitional ceremony, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Trump has often touted his relationship with Xi, even as he plans to introduce hefty tariffs on the country in the upcoming term.

The two have met before, including when Trump invited Xi to his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2017.

Trump has threatened to impose new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China on his first day in office. The Chinese tariff will be 10 percent on all goods, which is in addition to the existing tariffs imposed by the president-elect during his first term.

It’s still unknown if Xi will head to Washington in the new year, but Gingrich said the invitation alone was a “tremendous move.”

“I think there’s a 50/50 chance that Xi Jinping is going to show up, which you have to admit, in terms of sending a signal to the planet, would be pretty unbelievable,” he said.