Newt Gingrich: “This is a very small amount of money, but it is symbolically very important, and symbolically important in part for the…”

“This is a very small amount of money, but it is symbolically very important, and symbolically important in part for the signal it sends to people, particularly in Africa and Asia, about whether or not the United States is prepared to reach out and be helpful. I want to confess up front, from a Republican standpoint I have some concern for elephants, but as a person, and maybe this is because of my own physique, I have a particular affection for rhinoceroses. I happened to have helped the Atlanta zoo get two rhinos. However, I will say that when we think about the gesture we are making, and this has already been modified by the subcommittee in a way which I thought was very helpful in moving toward raising private sector funds and in making sure that we had to get involvement from the private sector, but I think that for this tiny amount of money, we are helping maintain an effort on behalf of some large mammals, all of which are severely threatened and all of which could disappear, literally be gone, unable to ever again find them in the wild.”