Meredith Vieira: What do you take away from the president's visit to Latin America? What do you think his goals were and in your estimation, was it a successful trip?

Newt Gingrich: Well I think first of all the importance of the Chavez smile and handshake is illustrated by your report just now on the jump in the book sales from number 54,000 to number 2. Everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and being with the president as proof that Chavez is now legitimate, that he's acceptable. He is a dictatorial figure. He is an anti-American figure.

But what I find distressing is that this administration is opposed to looking for oil off shore, but the president bows to the Saudi King. The president is friends with the Venezuela, whose biggest impact on us is that they sell us a lot of oil.

And I just think there's a shallowness about how they analyze this. It does matter to the world if the United States tolerates a vicious anti-American propaganda campaign and then smiles and greets the person who's systematically been anti-American for his entire career.

MV: But Newt you heard what the president said, that he does not believe that the man's hand will endanger the strategic interests of the United States. So you disagree with that.

NG: First of all I think stopping us from [inaudible] oil is dangerous to our strategic interest. But I think we've had weakness in the last two weeks with North Korea, we have weakness with Iran, we have bowing to the Saudi King, we have weakness with Hamas, we have weakness with Cuba - and Cuba has not released a single political prisoner. And I think we have to recognize that if the administration wants to look at facts, that the record is even worse than the smiles and the handshakes.

MV: But do you think he should not be trying to mend relationships with other world leaders?

NG: How do you mend relationships with somebody who hates your country, who actively calls for the destruction of your country and who wants to undermine you?

MV: We certainly have mended relationships with countries that have hated us in the past. Russia comes to mind, China comes to mind.

NG: But we didn't rush over, smile and greet Russian dictators. We understood who they were. Yeah, you could talk, I'm not against him talking to Chavez, but you have to talk to Chavez in a cold and distant way because Chavez openly, constantly attacks the United States. Just as the Iranians are building a nuclear weapon every day. And smiling at them doesn't slow them down a bit.

MV: You have called the Obama Administration, "the most radical left-wing administration in American history with a fantasy foreign policy that has no connection to reality." Do you believe we are headed straight for a major foreign policy crisis?

NG: I think inevitably, sooner or later, we're going to have a big problem. And what I said is based on what I just said to you. The North Koreans fire a missile: nothing happens. The Iranians announce their 7300th centrifuge to build nuclear weapons: nothing happens. Hamas fires another missile at Israel: nothing happens. Cuba releases zero prisoners: we make nice to Cuba.

There's no sign that Chavez has become any less anti-American. And I think we have to be honest about the dangers in the world. I am for doing methodically and calmly as Ronald Reagan did, the things that will work. But I'm not for deluding myself about whether or not words and smiles are a substitute for real strategies.

We believe that organized bolivarian criminal groups within the Chávez administration have subtracted around $100 billion out of the nearly $1 trillion in oil income made by PDVSA since 1999.” - According to Jerry Brewer, president of Criminal Justice International Associates (CJIA)