Newly announced Crossfire hosts Newt Gingrich and Stephanie Cutter joined Wolf Blitzer in CNN's Situation Room to offer a preview of the political debate show revival on Wednesday. And the former Republican presidential candidate assured viewers that he wants to keep things civil when the program returns this fall.
"I think we can recreate that original Crossfire sense, that this is the place to be if you want to hear people really talk about the facts and the issues, not just about talking points and yelling at each other," Gingrich figured. He also mentioned his appearances on the earlier version of Crossfire.
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"A long, long time ago I was on Crossfire a lot as a young Congressman. It was exciting, it was fact-oriented, it had very smart people as guests and people tuned in because they learned something," Gingrich said. "They didn't just learn conservative talking points or liberal talking points, they watched interesting, smart people try to understand what America should be doing."
Crossfire, which premiered on CNN in 1982, was canceled in 2005 months after Daily Show host Jon Stewart appeared as a guest and admonished hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala about what he saw as the simple promotion of right and left leaning talking points.
The revival of the show, set to launch this fall, will be hosted by Gingrich, Stephanie Cutter, a deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama's re-election effort, conservative columnist S.E. Cupp and author and former Obama advisor Van Jones.
"We look forward to the opportunity to host passionate conversation from all sides of the political spectrum," said CNN President Jeff Zucker in a news release Wednesday. "Crossfire will be the forum where America holds its great debates."
When asked by Blitzer what she looked forward to about the new show, Cutter replied: "It's not talking points and it's not political jabs, it's differences of opinion and finding areas where maybe we can agree."
Watch the discussion (Crossfire talk begins at 5:40):
