Newt Will Get Friendly with CNN and MSNBC at Correspondents' Dinner

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Prom is a bad time to break up with your first true love but Newt Gingrich is doing it anyway. At this weekend's White House Correspondent's Dinner, Gingrich is jilting Fox News and canoodling with the network's competition: CNN and MSNBC. The red carpet event, known in DC as "nerd prom," comes just as Gingrich's campaign collapses and he looks for someone to blame for the defeat. Thanks to a few offhand remarks he made earlier this month, we know Fox News is on his list and the grudge will apparently hold throughout the weekend.  

According to this morning's Politico Playbook, Newt and Callista are anticipated guests for (gasp!) MSNBC's White House Correspondents' Association Dinner after-party. The former House Speaker will be in the heart of the liberal lion's den, with left-leaning guests including Arianna Huffington, White House press secretary Jay Carney, Woody Harrelson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Goldie Hawn, and Ari Emanuel. Let's hope there aren't any strategically-placed couches for him to get cozy with a liberal on.

If that weren't vengeful enough, Gingrich made it perfectly clear he wouldn't be joining Greta Van Susteren's Fox News table, even if it did manage to snag Lindsay Lohan.  "The only press events I go to are interesting dinners when the wife insists on it, so we're going to go to the White House Correspondents' dinner because she wants to," Gingrich said at a meeting of tea party leaders in Delaware this month. "And we're actually going to go to CNN's table, not Fox."

Why the bad blood? According to Gingrich, the network is responsible for his crippling defeat. "There's no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign," he said. "In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than Fox this year ... I assume it's because Murdoch at some point said, 'I want Romney,' and so 'fair and balanced' became 'Romney."

Following those remarks Fox News president Roger Ailes shot back saying Gingrich's words were just a bid to find new employment, saying Gingrich is “trying to get a job at CNN because he knows he isn’t going to get to come back to Fox News.”

We've asked Fox News if Gingrich will be attending any of the network's events during the Correspondents' weekend and we'll update if they respond. 

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.