WASHINGTON — ABC News interviewed Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich’s second wife — with whom he’s said he has no relationship — and is likely to air the segment tonight on “Nightline,” an ABC News executive said.
The ABC News executive did not indicate what Marianne Gingrich said in the interview. The executive spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans for airing the interview were tentative.
The interview, should it air before Saturday’s South Carolina primary, would shine a spotlight on a part of Gingrich’s past that could turn off voters in a state filled with religious and cultural conservatives who may cringe at Ging rich’s two divorces and acknowledged infidelity.
Marianne Gingrich has said Gingrich proposed to her before the divorce from his first wife was final in 1981, and they were married six months later. Marianne’s marriage to Gingrich ended in divorce in 2000, and Gingrich admitted he’d already taken up with Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide who would become his third wife.
Denver Post wire services
