‘There’s A Force Of Evil In The World’: Chris Christie Warns Russia And Hamas Are Connected
On Wednesday, former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) discussed the growing threat of evil across the world with Russia, Hamas, China, Iran, and North Korea during a house party in New Hampshire.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 after she announced the anniversary.
00:01 - I was pushing people from the kitchen.
00:03 - Well, first of all, thank you all.
00:05 I hear all of you in that room, too.
00:08 I want to thank Juliana and Arto for hosting us tonight.
00:12 Also send brief greetings from my wife, Mary Pat.
00:15 Couldn't be with us today because she's got her older sister
00:18 visiting from Colorado.
00:20 So it's a rare occasion when she gets back east from Colorado.
00:26 I gave Mary Pat a pass for this one and let her visit with her sister.
00:31 But I thank you all for being here.
00:33 Look, when I think about we're a week away from the next debate,
00:38 just a week from tonight in Miami,
00:41 when I think about where we were at the last debate
00:44 and how much the world has changed,
00:46 think about it, in just six weeks,
00:50 we have a situation now in Israel that is just reprehensible.
00:57 I mean, more of the information is coming out now
01:01 about exactly what Hamas did in their attack in Israel.
01:07 And it was not just the murder of 1,400 people,
01:13 but it was the way they did it.
01:15 And more and more of that information is coming out.
01:18 And let me tell you what it sounds exactly like.
01:22 It sounds exactly like what happened in Ukraine.
01:25 When I went to Ukraine about two months ago,
01:30 I saw photographs of the butchery that was done by the Russian soldiers,
01:36 gouging out people's eyes while they were alive,
01:39 cutting off their ears to send the message that no one will see what's happened
01:43 and no one will do a bad thing,
01:46 and murdering the men, raping the women, starting with the youngest,
01:52 so that the older women who were in the same home would have to watch.
01:58 Similar things happening in Israel.
02:00 I spoke to a rabbi who's a close friend of mine just today--he's in Israel--
02:06 and got a chance to speak to the father of a 19-year-old young woman
02:13 who's part of the IDF who was kidnapped.
02:16 He doesn't know where she is, doesn't know whether she's dead or alive.
02:20 He's in Israel to try to find her and is wearing a shirt with her picture on it.
02:28 Twenty thousand children were kidnapped in Ukraine and brought back to Russia.
02:35 Hundreds and hundreds of people, including Americans, kidnapped in Israel.
02:41 If we don't believe all these things are connected, we're naive.
02:45 There is a foursome of evil in the world right now--China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
02:52 They're all working together.
02:54 China's funding the Russian war.
02:57 Iran and North Korea are supplying weapons to the Russians.
03:00 And if you don't think the Russians and the Chinese encouraged what happened with Hamas,
03:06 you're kidding yourself, because that helps to distract us
03:10 from what's going on in Ukraine and making us divide our attention between Ukraine and Israel.
03:15 So let me deal with both of those situations right up front.
03:19 One, on Israel, we should be doing three things, in my view.
03:22 One is supporting Israel financially and militarily in every way we can
03:28 so that they can protect the territorial integrity of their country
03:32 and the safety and security of their citizens.
03:36 And we should support Israel going into Gaza and getting rid of these terrorists
03:42 and degrading their ability to do this again.
03:46 Because if you didn't see it, there's a video that came out the last day or so
03:50 of one of the leaders of Hamas saying that they won't stop until they've killed every Jew.
03:59 So for all those people out there who are calling for a ceasefire,
04:03 it will be a one-sided ceasefire, everybody.
04:06 It will be a ceasefire only by the Israelis,
04:09 because Hamas has made clear that they will not stop until they kill every Jew.
04:17 Third, we need to keep Israel focused on the fact that they were making real progress
04:22 towards isolating Iran by making agreements with other Arab nations in the region
04:28 to continue to isolate Iran and have their policy of wiping Israel off the map
04:33 be the outlier in the Middle East.
04:36 We can't do anything in Gaza that will prevent that process from continuing to happen.
04:40 And so those are the three things I think we should be encouraging Israel to do
04:43 and supporting Israel in doing.
04:45 And I will have to say that I give the President credit since October 7th.
04:49 I think the things he's said has made sense, and I think him going to Israel
04:53 was a really important symbolic move representing our country and our loyalty to Israel.
04:59 And if you wonder how important those kind of things are--some people say just symbolism--
05:04 but in this instance I think it's important.
05:07 Think back to 9/11.
05:09 Nine days after 9/11, President Bush gave a speech to a joint session of Congress,
05:15 and sitting in the gallery was Tony Blair, then the prime minister of Great Britain,
05:19 the leader of our strongest ally in the world.
05:23 He didn't just send good wishes.
05:25 He got on a plane, and he came to the Capitol, and he sat there in a black suit
05:32 with a black tie to represent his mourning of the lost Americans.
05:37 And I remember watching it that night and thinking to myself,
05:40 what an amazing moment for him to do that.
05:44 I think it was a similar moment for President Biden to go up there and do it.
05:48 We're not Republicans or Democrats at moments like that.
05:50 We want our president to be our president, and I think he did a good job of that.
05:54 Now, there's lots I would have done differently before October 7th,
05:57 and we can talk about that during questions, but after October 7th I gave him credit.
06:01 On Ukraine, I am heartened to hear the new speaker say that he supports Ukraine
06:10 and supports more aid for Ukraine.
06:13 I think that's a very important thing, and I hope that while he's not connecting the two things,
06:17 which I would do, I feel confident he'll bring a bill to the floor to support Ukraine,
06:22 and that will get bipartisan support, I think overwhelming bipartisan support, for this reason.
06:28 Think about this. We've spent 5 percent of one year's budget of the Pentagon, one year's budget,
06:33 and with that money they've degraded 50 percent of the Russian military hardware.
06:38 That's a pretty good return on investment for anybody.
06:41 And we're doing that without sacrificing one American life to get it done.
06:48 I heard Vivek on TV with Piers Morgan today, and he said that he would offer Putin a deal,
07:00 that he would let Putin keep all the land he seized through his violence.
07:06 He promised Putin that we would never admit Ukraine to NATO.
07:10 In return, Putin would have to give us the fact that he would no longer be allies with China.
07:16 Seriously, it's time to go back to Harvard and get some type of further advanced degree
07:24 to learn something about foreign policy and history.
07:28 The last time we walked away from a shooting war and turned our back on a shooting war in Europe,
07:33 what happened was that we had to sacrifice half a million American lives to stop Hitler.
07:40 If you think Putin will stop if we give him Ukraine, he'll be on to the Baltics and on to Poland.
07:48 And by the way, those are all members of NATO.
07:51 He attacks them, we have a treaty obligation to defend them.
07:56 This is the lowest cost way in dollars and in American lives to stop Russia
08:03 and to send a message to China, their sponsor, that they're not trying to say anything in Taiwan.
08:09 And so these incidents over the last few weeks are so important,
08:15 but I don't think you can start off any conversation about running for president without talking about those
08:20 and letting people know exactly where you stand and what kind of president you would be.
08:24 And I think Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis and Veve who believe you can appease Putin
08:31 are just as wrong as Neville Chamberlain was when he thought he could appease Hitler.
08:37 Murderous dictators are never appeased.
08:42 They always want more.
08:45 And we have to stand up and fight against that.