Bye Bye Democracy!: June 2023

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Posted by ABC News

Reshared by VinnyG (The Original KB723)

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That is not leadership everybody, that is a failure of leadership and I. You can boo all you want! But here's the thing our faith teaches us. That people have to take responsibility for what they do, people have to stand up and take accountability for what they do!

That's Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie bluntly criticizing Donald Trump before a skeptical crowd of social conservatives at the Faith and Freedom conference in Washington. The former New Jersey governor and former ABC News contributor joins us now.

Uh, Governor Christie I want to get to that in a minute but first you heard secretary Blinken, talking about the situation in Moscow. There's a lot that the United States just doesn't know about what is going down. How would a President Christie be handling this situation?

Photo courtesy of New York Times

Well here's what we do know John, what we do know is that America's support along with our allies in NATO of Ukraine has done a great deal to cause what we're seeing right now, um in Russia uh Putin's misadventure uh and all the missteps that happen by the body Administration the Trump Administration and the Obama Administration on this issue have led to this moment and I think you have to watch this very carefully, but we have to continue to support Ukraine. We have to give them the weapons they need to fight their battle against the Russians and to repel them uh and I think that what this may do John is move us closer to a resolution of this battle uh because of Putin's weakness that's obvious now inside his own country.

I think in large part because of the way he has prosecuted this war as you know there are increasingly loud voices within the Republican Party calling for the United States to stop aiding Ukraine.

What's your message? Including some of your opponents, what's your message to them in light of all this that America has never been a great country and the leader of the World by filling in the moat and pulling up the drawbridge?

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Um you know, we need to make sure that we're engaged because believe me this is the first fight in the proxy war with China. China is funding this war for Russia by buying Russian oil and they are saying very clearly that there is no limit to the partnership between Russia and China. We need to make sure that we continue to engage in this way, we do not want a world that is dominated by communist China, and so this is a fight that America needs to have. It always involves sacrifice but in the end at the end of this sacrifice I am absolutely a believer in the fact that America will be bigger stronger richer and more influential in the world because we stood by our principles and stood by our friends.

Photo courtesy of The New York Times

All right we heard the reaction to your speech at the Faith and Freedom conference I assume you well knew you were going to get booed when you started slamming Donald Trump's leadership? I did hear some Applause in that crowd as well but the boo's were loud. What what's your saying, say is the Anti-Trump message, is there any evidence that it's resonating absolutely?

Evidence is resonating Jonathan, in the in the race for less than three weeks and I'm already in third place in New Hampshire, only four points behind Ron DeSantis who's been in the race for a longer time and is supposed to be the co-front runner. Uh look uh people understand that folks need to take responsibility for what they do and my message to the folks at Faith and Freedom which did get some good reaction too, but of course I expected the boo's!

That is predominantly a Trump crowd, but they need to hear the truth too, that you know character is the single most important element of a President of the United States, because you can't know every uh every issue that's going to come across a President's desk it's not a litmus test! With check boxes are in them what you need to know is what is the character of that person and frankly when I, I listened to Donald Trump's speech last night and he had the audacity to say that he got indicted for us!?

Photo courtesy of Rolling Stone

Now I don't know how it benefited the American people for him to take highly sensitive intelligence and secret documents out of the White House. To Stonewall the government on returning them for over a year and a half to subject himself to a raid by the FBI even though they had asked them voluntarily to return this stuff! Um and um to then be subject to an indictment which is obviously going to be one of great trouble for the country, because no one wants to see this happen. Donald Trump says that's for us? I mean it's it's absurd uh the same way he has absurdly claimed in the last week that he still won the 2020 election and he said that's how he's going to persuade Suburban female voters to vote for him in 2024? That didn't vote for him at 20.

Look this guy lost in 18 he lost the Senate and the White House in 20. the house in 18. he lost two more governorships in the senate race in 2022 he is a three-time loser!

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We do not need our party to go to a fourth loss because Joe Biden in my opinion John is an awful President and we can't afford to have him from age 82 to 86 in the White House or even worse have Kamala Harris assume the presidency! That's the stakes here it's not about whether you think Donald Trump has been treated Fairly or Not by the media or by elements of the Justice Department! It is about whether he is a man of character! Who can lead this party to Victory and I don't believe he can!

I think we know where you stand, uh let me ask you before you go the question of abortion yesterday, of course was the one year anniversary of the repeal of Roe. DeSantis of course signed into law six-month abortion ban. Your position as I understand it, is the states uh should decide. Do you think that's six-month abortion ban uh makes DeSantis unelectable in a general election?

I think it's a six weeks sorry six weeks six weeks Excuse me yes the six week abortion ban, yeah six week abortions?

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Yes, look John, conservatives like me for the last 50 years have been arguing this is not a federal issue it's a state issue and it's something the state should decide. The Dobbs case one year ago gave us the opportunity to let each state make this decision and what I hope to see is that with each of the 50 states but more importantly the people of each of the 50 states deciding this issue. We then could see a national consensus develop if the national consensus develops I have no problem with the federal government then stepping in and confirming that National consensus but I think we should allow the states and the people of the states to be heard on this issue, it's an incredibly important issue John. I'm pro-life I've always been pro-life with exceptions for rape incest and life of the mother and I remain pro-life and was a pro-life governor of a very blue State and was elected twice, but these are the kind of issues we need to we need to be discussing on the debate stage on August 23rd and as you know um the RNC has said you need 40 000 donors to get on that stage so anybody who is listening this morning go to chrischristy.com donate a dollar make sure we have these debates and the debate like I had at Faith and Freedom! We need to do that John!

All right Governor Christie thank you good to have you on this week take care.