TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie gave another interview on network news Thursday night, appearing on “The O’Reilly Factor” to talk President Donald Trump, sanctuary cities and what role in the administration that would have sent him packing.
It was Christie’s second network news interview this week.
Here are three things you may have missed if you didn’t watch the interview:
1. Travel ban “wasn’t explained” correctly
Christie continued to insist the rollout of Trump’s executive order temporarily restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries was terrible. The governor said he agreed with the policy, but heavy-handedly suggested Trump could be better served by his advisers.
“It was allowed to mischaracterize it because it wasn’t rolled out in the correct way,” Christie said.
“It wasn’t explained in the right way and it wasn’t communicated, it seems to me, the right way governmentally to make sure that it was implemented smoothly in the beginning, and so a lot the way the left is now mischaracterizing,” he said. “The president deserves better.”
Christie made similar statements on Tuesday during a press conference and again later that day during an appearance on MSNBC.
2. He won’t cut state funding to Newark
Christie said he wouldn’t follow the lead of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and cut funding to cities — including New Jersey’s largest, Newark — whose official refuse to comply with Trump’s executive order targeting so-called sanctuary cities.
“First they need the federal government to act, Bill, because when you talk about sanctuary cities, they’re not refusing to enforce state laws. They’re refusing to enforce federal laws,” Christie said. “Gov. Abbott governs a very different state then I do.”
But, Christie made clear, he supports the federal government slashing aid to sanctuary cities.
“Let me tell you, when I ran for president I said I’d do exactly the same thing. The fact is those folks should be enforcing federal law and the federal government has to give tools to the states to be able to help them have have the enforcement of federal law,” Christie said.
3. The job that would have sent him packing
Christie said he likely would have resigned as governor if Trump had offered him the post of U.S. attorney general.
“Given that I spent seven years of my life in the Department of Justice, that would been a hard thing to turn down,” Christie said.
Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or on Facebook.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
