Chris Christie dominated Tuesday’s undercard Republican presidential debate, deflecting attacks by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and turning each brickbat into an opportunity to bash Democrat Hillary Clinton.
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“If you listen to Hillary Clinton, she’s made it very clear she believes she can make decisions for you better than you can yourself”, he said.
He accused Christie of expanding food stamps while governor of New Jersey and cast Bush’s plan to replace Obamacare as creating just another entitlement program.
Christie and Huckabee will join former Pennsylvania Sen.
The debate will notably exclude former NY Gov. George Pataki (R) and Sen. I think time will tell how well it went. “If the Chinese commit cyber warfare against us, they are going to see cyber warfare like they have never seen it before”, Christie said, vowing to hack into secret government accounts so records of how the Chinese government spends its money can be disclosed to the Chinese public. Let me use my time to say this: “I want to fire everybody in D.C.in both parties”.
“Chris, I think records matter”, Jindal said. “It’s gone up $5 billion in New Jersey, down $9 billion in Louisiana”, Jindal said.
“Chris, look, I’ll give you a ribbon for participation – and a juice box”.
“I felt really good about how it went last night”, Christie said on “Fox and Friends”.
A separate survey released Tuesday delivered a more targeted blow to Christie: Quinnipiac University found that 61 percent of voters in New Jersey thought he should drop out, CNN reported.
In the early portion of Tuesday’s debate, Santorum said he favored the Export-Import Bank, but opposed bailing out private industry.
Christie said that every presidential candidate brings forward their personal story to the media and the public as part of their qualifications to be president, so that “absolutely” is open to scrutiny from the media. My point is this: “if politicians say they’re going to be conservative, they say they’re going to cut spending but they don’t do it, why should we send them to DC?”
While Carly Fiorina used the preliminary forum at the first debate in Cleveland on August 6 as a springboard to qualify for later prime-time debates, candidates in the past two undercards have failed to gain any traction in the race from their performances. “And, she was stopped then by a strong group of republicans, and an American public that said, ‘No, thank you, ‘” said Mr. Christie, who is the Governor of New Jersey that has a significant Indian-American population. Christie is offering a promise of being a victorious champion which has already been disproven. “Let’s not just beat Hillary, let’s elect a conservative to the White House, not just any Republican”, he adds.
The governor was simply “reminding everyone that this is about defeating the Democrats and Hillary Clinton, not each other”, a spokesperson said.
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When he tries to attack Christie though, he isn’t having any of it and doesn’t take the bait.
