Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke out on Tuesday to address whether or not President Donald Trump should attend Joe Biden’s inauguration next month, and what he had to say may come as a surprise to some.

While appearing on “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” Gingrich said that Trump now needs to figure out if it’s better for his message to attend the inauguration or to skip it altogether. However, the Republican former speaker surprisingly added that Trump should “probably” go to the inauguration just because it is tradition.

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“[S]hould President Trump attend the inauguration of President-elect Biden?” Hewitt asked directly.

“Probably,” Gingrich responded. “I think that we’ve only had a couple of presidents in history who didn’t. John Quincy Adams didn’t. And the Republicans in 1868 didn’t. But other than those two, it’s a routine.”

Gingrich went on to say that if Trump does not go, he will need an explanation ready for the public.

“If he does not go, I think he has to explain why,” he said. “And I’ve written a piece on why I will not give up, in which I’m pretty aggressive about this in general. Not so much the election, but the whole process of where the country is right now, which I think is extraordinarily dangerous. So I think Trump’s got to decide, you know, what best communicates his message.”

Gingrich concluded by revealing why he thinks Trump is reluctant to attend the inauguration.

“I think his instinct is not to go because he’s convinced the election was stolen,” he said.

This comes after Gingrich wrote an op-ed called “Why I will not accept Joe Biden as president,” which was published in The Washington Times. In this op-ed, he explained that he can’t accept the results of this election because of an anger he has never felt before. 

“As I thought about it, I realized my anger and fear were not narrowly focused on votes,” Gingrich wrote. “My unwillingness to relax and accept that the election was over grew out of a level of outrage and alienation unlike anything I had experienced in more than 60 years involvement in public affairs.”

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He went on to say that liberals and conservatives “live in alternative worlds” these days.

“You have more than 74 million voters who supported President Trump despite everything — and given the election mess, the number could easily be significantly higher. The truth is tens of millions of Americans are deeply alienated and angry,” Gingrich wrote. “If Mr. Biden governs from the left — and he will almost certainly be forced to — that number will grow rapidly, and we will win a massive election in 2022.”