Newt Gingrich’s big applause line in the South Carolina CNN debate is coming back to bite him.

When moderator John King opened the debate with a question about allegations that his ex-wife made in an interview. Gingrich fired back, saying that his campaign offered several friends familiar with the situation to rebut ABC’s interview, but that the network refused to talk to them.

That wasn’t really true, his campaign now says.

Gingrich’s spokesman R.C. Hammond has told CNN that the only witnesses it offered to ABC were Gingrich’s two daughters from his first marriage. Not exactly the scores of “personal friends” that Gingrich promised as character witnesses in the debate, and promised again in a follow-up interview with King.

Mitt Romney came down against Gingrich’s treatment of the media, and John King in particular, in an appearance on FOX News Wednesday, The Hill reports.

“It’s very easy to talk down a moderator,” Romney said. “The moderator asks a question and then has to sit by and take whatever you send to them. And Speaker Gingrich has been wonderful at attacking the moderators and attacking the media.”

Ultimately, the legacy of Gingrich’s big moment might not matter, as Gingrich’s South Carolina boost seems to be shrinking fast. Already the conservative media is uniting to sink Gingrich’s campaign, and new polls show that Gingrich is rapidly losing his lead in Florida.

Source: Business Insider.

As the political world waits to hear what Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife had to say about their failed marriage in an interview that will air later today, the reporter who conducted that interview, ABC Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross, told WMAL’s Morning Majority program that Marianne Gingrich claims her ex-husband wanted an ‘open marriage.’

“He came to her and said, ‘I want to stay married to you and still have an affair with Calista, his current wife,” said Ross. “According to Marianne, he said ‘You need to share me,’ and she said ‘I don’t want to share,’ and the marriage ended,” he added.

Ross told WMAL that ABC News had been trying to land the interview with Marianne Gingrich off-and-on since November, and that she finally agreed to sit down with him last Friday here in Washington.

“I think we start by knowing that what an ex-wife has to say we all take with a grain of salt, I hope, because that’s what ex-wives can be known for,” says Ross. “But I think the most dramatic thing from the point of view of people looking at Gingrich  in his campaign about character and that he’s asked for God’s forgiveness and that he believes in the sanctity of marriage is her allegation that what Gingrich wanted from her was an open marriage,” he says.

“She talked about how he called her and told her he loved her, knowing that Calista was next to him in bed in their apartment in Washington,” says Ross.

Ross says Marianne Gingrich wanted to come forward now, because she thinks voters would want to know this kind of information before they go to the polls.

Click on the video below to hear Brian Ross’ entire interview on WMAL’s Morning Majority.

Source: WMAL.