Chris Christie’s Highlights ― Second Primary Republican Debate

A follow-up question to Governor Christie. The government will shut down if Congress does not reach a deal by the end of this week. Vice President Pence warns that politics of, quote, Trump's populist protégés, like Mr. Ramaswamy, are a road to ruin for the GOP. If the government shuts down, should voters blame populist Republicans? Voters should blame everybody who's in Washington, D.C. They get sent down there to do the job, and they've been failing at doing the job for a very long time. And let's be honest about this with the voters. You know, during the Trump administration, they added $7 trillion, $7 trillion in national debt. And now the Biden administration has put another $5 trillion on and counting. They have failed, and they're in the spot they're in now because none of them are willing to tell the truth, none of them are willing to take on the difficult issues. They just want to keep kicking the can down the road. And the inflation that Nikki spoke about is absolutely right, and it's caused by government spending. And that's why people all across this country are suffering tonight. And yet we don't get any answers, because Joe Biden hides in his basement and won't answer as to why he's raising the debt the way he's done. And Donald Trump, he hides behind the walls of his golf clubs and won't show up here to answer questions like all the rest of us are up here to answer. He put $7 trillion on the debt. He should be in this room to answer those questions for the people you talk about who are suffering. And if the government—and if the government closes, and if the government closes, it's the blame—it is to the blame of everyone in Washington, D.C., who has failed to do their job and just plays to the grandstand. The idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back, they may have entered illegally. Two years later, President Reagan granted amnesty to nearly 3 million immigrants, something no Democrat or Republican president has done since. Governor Christie, as governor of a non-border state in 2010, you supported a path to citizenship. But when you ran for president in 2016, you flipped, saying immigrants should be tracked like FedEx packages. Where do you stand now on a path to citizenship for 11 million of undocumented immigrants? GOVERNOR CHRISTIE, FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. it as President of the United States. Senator Christie, I wanted to follow up on this because 22% of American workers fear their jobs will be lost to a robot. And you said in the past that the free market is the way to go. Would you retrain workers who lose a job to artificial intelligence and to do what? Well, look, what I think artificial intelligence offers us is an extraordinary opportunity to expand well beyond the productivity that we have now and to have Americans be able to be involved in that revolution, Dana. Each time we have shown incredible innovation and progress in this country, what we've done with it is to expand all kinds of new, even unthought of opportunities for folks. Yes, we have to do retraining for folks who lose some of their jobs, and we should be doing that. And we should have more training available both at the county college level and the local level for people to be able to access it. So, yes, I would be in favor of that. But this is a much bigger issue than that. We can't be afraid of innovation. America has been the great innovator of this world over the last 250 years, a technological innovator, a manufacturing innovator, and a freedom and governmental innovator. And that's why America has to continue to stand strong in the world, pro-innovation, pro-progress. And I will tell you this, as President of the United States, what I will do is to make sure that every innovator in this country gets the government the hell off its back and out of its pocket so that it can innovate and bring great new inventions to our country that will make everybody's lives better. Governor Christie, President Biden's first two years have brought China, Russia and Iran closer together. Are we focused too much on Ukraine and not enough on this threat from the new world order? No, they're all connected, Stuart. They're all connected. The Chinese are paying for the Russian war in Ukraine. The Iranians are supplying more sophisticated weapons. And so are the North Koreans now, as well, with the encouragement of the Chinese. The naivete on this stage from some of these folks is extraordinary. Look, I understand people want to go and talk to Putin. Guess what? So did George W. Bush. So did Barack Obama. So did Donald Trump. And so did Joe Biden when he said a small invasion wouldn't be so bad. Every one of them has been wrong. And the fact of the matter is, we need to say right now that the Chinese-Russian alliance is something we have to fight against, and we are not going to solve it by going over and cuddling up to Vladimir Putin. Look, Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin was brilliant and a great leader. This is the person who is murdering people in his own country, and now not having enough blood, he's now going to Ukraine to murder innocent civilians and kidnap 20,000 children. And let me tell you, if you think that's where it's going to stop, if we give him any of Ukraine, next will be Poland. This is a guy who said—once said—this is a guy in 1991 who said that was the darkest moment in world history when the Soviet Union fell. Listen, everybody, he wants to put the old band back together, and only America can stop it. And when I'm president, we will. Governor, I want to get to—Governor Christie, do you think that Republicans— Yes, I will. Thank you. Governor Christie, do you think that Republicans can do that in Arizona if this referendum is on the ballot there? Yeah, because I did it in New Jersey, Dana. You know, it's— Then why are all these other states losing? Well, because they don't have leaders in those states who are leading the fight the way it should be led. And the fact is, look, I was a governor here of the only blue state that's represented up here. This is where the fight is really tough for Republicans. And those are the states that we're going to have to try to win if we're going to win the White House back. And what we did was 14 times, Dana, in eight years, I vetoed Planned Parenthood funding. Fourteen times. No one else gets it that much. The Democrats just kept sending it to me. And I kept saying no, because I believe in life, but I also believe in states' rights. And I think we fought hard against Roe vs. Wade for decades to say that states should make these decisions. So we're going to have those fights in the states. But what you need is a leader who can talk to people and make them understand that if you're pro-life, you have to be pro-life for the entire life, not just the nine months in the womb. And we talked a lot about fentanyl tonight, and we haven't spoken one moment about treatment. But we need to make sure that for the drug-addicted 16-year-old on the floor of the county lockup, her life is precious, too. And we need to be providing treatment to cure this as a disease that it is. If you're pro-life, you've got to be pro-life for the entire life. We start talking like that, they're going to do what I did in the blue state, which was get reelected with 61 percent of the vote and won 70 percent of independents and 51 percent of Latinos, because I told them the truth from my heart.