Transcripts For CSPAN Campaign 20240703

Of america than that. [applause] and i, that as someone who endorsed donald trump in 2016 i was the first want to do it. Second one. Chris christie the second one first one of the candidates to run against him to do it. I really believed i could try to help make him a better candidate and a better president. I carried his transition into the white house and his drug and opioid commissions. I played Hillary Clinton in debate prep in 2016. [laughter] i apologize for this you will be able to sleep after that. And then i took some sedatives and then played joe biden in debate prep in 2020. So i am not someone who is a never trump or. I wasnt. But you have to meet a certain standard in your personal conduct and in your political conduct. If you dont meet that standard, put aside the criminal charges. You can agree with them or disagree with them and there are some i agree with of the charges that were brought against him in some i disagree with. But the conduct is unacceptable. In my view for president , i got some interesting reaction from the basketball arena i was in that night but its ok. If you are afraid to be booed then you have no business sitting behind the desk in the oval office. Because it is going to be a lot tougher there than getting blues and a basketball arena. Second, i brought up law and order. I think it is one of the most important issues in this race. In every way. I look at the crime that is happening in our major cities across this country and it sickens me. There is no reason for it to be happening. If we have prosecutors in these places who would support Law Enforcement doing their jobs we would not have the kind of violence we have in los angeles and San Francisco and chicago and new york and many of the other cities in this country that are experiencing it and when we allow that crime to happen, its going to spread beyond the cities. Into suburbs and rural areas as well. I promise you this, i was u. S. Attorney and new jersey for seven years and we are a must for our criminals. [laughter] i will tell you my first instruction to the person i make attorney general is to go into the cities were Violent Crime is out of control and have the u. S. Attorneys in those cities take over the enforcement of Violent Crime, work with the local police forces, and to charge those people federally. Those local prosecutors were supported by george soros in that group dont want to do those jobs, will do those jobs until they learn that those jobs need to be done because the people who pay their salaries demand that those jobs be done. I am the only person who is ever done this in their careers, i know how to do it. By following the constitution, following the law and respecting both of them. But respecting the fact that the folks that live and work and pay the taxes in this country deserve to be able to go into Great American cities and not fear for their lives. So we will make those changes when i become president. And lastly, before you take your questions. America has never been a great country when we fill in the moat and pull up the drawbridge from the rest of the world. This is a big debate you saw, at the last debate and i assume you will see that the next one as well. A month or so ago, a little more i traveled to ukraine. I can tell you that when you go there there are three things you learn quickly. First the atrocities that have been committed by the russian army. They have not just fault with the soldiers, in ukraine. They have murdered civilians. Facetoface. Not mistaken missiles that were sent. No. They went in the town of bucha from house to house, they pulled the men and by men i mean age 12 or older, out and gouged out their eyes, cut off their ears while they were alive. And then shot them in the back of the head in front of the rest of their family and then went back into the homes and raped the women in the homes starting with the youngest. So that the adult women would have to watch. If americans dont stand up against that kind of conduct, against a freedom loving country who got invaded by an autocratic authoritarian communist former kgb agent then we dont stand for anything. And also, if we dont understand that this is a proxy war with china. The chinese are funding this war for russia. Russia does not have the money to do it, the chinese are fronting it. In this week Vladimir Putin is going to travel to north korea to see kim jongun. Do you think the north korean dictator would be permitted to have that meeting if he did not have the blessing from the chinese . Who support him . And hes going to supply more sophisticated weapons the russians. Kill more people in ukraine. They are watching us. And if we back off your taiwan is next. And i dont think any americans want to see that happen. For humanitarian reasons or economic reasons. When you realize that two thirds of the world semi conductors are manufactured in taiwan. Everything from these to Everything Else in this country involve semi conductors. Start your car. Here homes. Cooling your homes. Everything involves these. We want the Chinese Communist Party Controlling that . Who gets them and who doesnt . I dont. The third thing i learned from meeting president zelenskyy was he affirmatively told me in that meeting we never want american troops here. It is a point of pride for us. The ukrainian people if given the weapons they need will defend our own country. We just need to stop being outgunned in artillery shells tend to one every day by the russian army. They are holding them off and now they are making gains in the counteroffensive. America has been at its greatest when we have stood up for freedom, not only here but around the world. Because we know when we stand up for freedom around the world it makes us freer. It makes us stronger. And it makes us more prosperous. Because free countries are the countries we trade with, they are the countries we work with. And are the countries where we dont have to buy our friends like the chinese do. Our friends want to be our friends because they know when they are in a fix we will help them and they will stand with us. This America First thing, i am all for it. I dont think there is anybody here who is like america third. Nobody here goes lets go with the netherlands one, let us go belgium to and america for a bronze medal nice we at third. We are all for America First but it is about how do we make America First. I dont think we do it by ignoring the rest of the world. Especially in a day like today. On a day like today we remember that despite the fact that we are guarded by two great oceans we are not invulnerable. From foreign attack. 22 years ago today we lost 3000 americans. And my wife was two blocks from the World Trade Center that day. My brother was four blocks from the World Trade Center that day. We lost people in our local parish. We lost half a dozen parents from our childs elementary school. This is not a historical event for me this is personal. My wife and i went to mass this morning and we saw in mass the wife of a friend of ours who was murdered 22 years ago today in the gym at the Catholic School connected to our church is named after him. The hole in her heart never gets filled. We must always remember that america is walking backwards on her heels and its not the way to make America First. At the way to make America First is to be on the balls of our feet every day ready to defend the things we believe in. I can guarantee you that thats the kind of president i will be if you give me the chance. So there are a lot of other issues to talk about but i want to know which ones you want to talk about. Those of the first through the popped in my mind. Mr. Brown. There you are. Right back there there is her first question. I am a new jersey kids well i graduated from drew with a degree in political science. And back then, there was quite a bit of collaboration between the parties. It was a time when people negotiated things. Now we dont get much done at all because congress and the senate have logjams. Nobody cares. How do we find a way to move forward bringing people this tribal divide we have currently, how do we bring it together so we start moving forward. What is that youre talking about, the things youre trying to achieve, how do we do that because i dont see it. Governor christie i know you dont see it and the reason you dont see it in my view is because we have not had a president since bush that even cared about it or knew how to do it. Barack obama spent a couple years in the senate, he had no interest in working with republicans and he made that clear. Donald trump in the same way showed no interest in working with democrats. And i dont think had any experience to know how to do it. And i just dont think joe biden is even able anymore. [laughter] to do it even if you wanted to but he is a partisan as well. I said this at the debate a couple weeks ago. When you look at that stage there is only one person who actually has defeated a democratic incumbent for office and that is me. By the way only three democratic governors have been for reelection in the last 30 years. And had beat one of them but when i did that i now was the conservative governor of one of the bluest states in this country with a democratic legislature, with 10 plus vote majorities in both houses. So i had to figure it out. Because if i was just going to hold my breath and be tribal as you put it, we would not of gotten anything done for eight years. Instead in eight years we took an 11 billion deficit on a 29 billion budget and we balanced it without any tax increases. We cut taxes. In new jersey. We passed pension and Health Reform that saved 120 billion. We brought in criminal Justice Reform that for the first time allowed judges in new jersey to put violent criminals in jail before their trial. Rather than have to give them ale. All those things and more were done with a democratic legislature. The aquatic majorities. Every day of my ears. Every day, every week, every month. Mary and i spent more time with people not only we did not agree with but many we do not even like. For eight years. [laughter] but guess what the people elected them too. My job is governor is to spend the time that was necessary to do it. The most important relationship i had was with the senate president. A guy named Steve Sweeney who is president of the iron workers union. Another shy and retiring fella to work with. Steve and i made a deal with each other in the beginning. We always tell each other the truth and that we would work to put touchdowns in the end zone, not just to make headlines. Now there were plenty of times we argued and fought, and plenty of times he would call me at 11 or 11 30 at night and that phone would ring and mary and i would be in bed and she was like dont answer it. And i would look and say it steve i have two. My point is it takes time. You have to invest time in these relationships. When you do, i found that what happens most of the time was one of the political axioms that i believe in the most which is is a little its a lot harder to heat up close. He get to know these folks and their families, you get to know they care about, why they ran, why they stay in office, what they want to accomplish, and they learned that about you. It does not mean youre going to get gas every time but it is a lot harder to heat up close. So i will fight when im president , i will fight about things i feel strongly about but i will fight in order to get things done. I will use the holy pulpit to try to move opinion more towards me. I will try to make sure i do everything i can to get as close to what i want as possible but then if i see something that will make the country better, even if its not exactly what i wanted, you have to know how to make a deal too. And we have not had that in washington dc in a long time and that is what i will bring. Over here, here you go. [applause] i would like to think im pretty young and i will be entering the workforce soon. I think much has been made about how over the course of the past 20 or 30 years the government deficit has been steadily increasing in the National Debt is piling up in what i am concerned about is paying into Government Programs that are not going to be solvent when i get to my retirement age. Im wondering what your thoughts are on how we can structure these programs so that we can keep them solvent long into the future like Social Security and medicare will also longterm appropriate Social Security net and Health Care Net for elderly. Governor christie this is another thing you havent heard other candidates talk about in this race. I want you to understand something, whether you are you are age or my age which is just 61 this past week happy birthday. Governor christie thank you, or whether you are older than me. In 11 year Social Security will go broke. And it will mean an automatic 24 cut in benefits to Social Security. For those of you who are on Social Security right now i want you to think, about what it would mean if the next direct deposit you got was 24 less than the one you got last month. What it would mean for you being able to pay your bills. Support yourself. And have the life that you become accustomed to before that. To me the most disgusting moment of joe bidens state of the Union Address was when he said can we all promise each other now that none of us will touch Social Security and both sides of the chambers got up and cheered. Liars and hypocrites. Because if we dont touch Social Security or medicare and try to fix it it will go broke. And then what will all of that shearing be leading to it . Will have a lot of people on the steps of the capital doing something but it will not be cheering. So we need to do with this. There is only three ways to deal Social Security. And it is solvency. Eligibility. Both in terms of income and age. And taxes. That is it. It is a math equation everybody, we all know it. I have said weve got to look at retirement age. Not for people in their 50s or 60s. Too late. To change it for them. I dont have enough time. To adjust to a longer window to retire. But two weeks after i turned 61 my oldest child turns 30 which i am having a hard time getting my arms around. That is harder than me being 61. But if i say to him now retirement age is going to be a few years higher than what you thought it was going to be and he cant adjust to that between age 30 and when he is in his 60s he has got much bigger problems to deal with. Then what the retirement age is for Social Security. So we need to deal with that and if we do without with people in the 30s and 40s and younger, that can extend the life of Social Security and solvency for a good period of time. I also think we need to look at means testing on it. By that i mean we need to look at folks who have been extraordinarily successful in this country and say do you need to hear Social Security check . I said this eight years ago. When i came up here and had one woman yell at me and say i paid into that program, i want my money back. Ok, two things on that. First, if we do nothing youre going to get your money 24 back. Secondly, there are lots of things we pay for in government that we never utilize. Fortunately for me and my family we have never been on food stamps. I paid a lot of money into the federal Food Stamp Program but never got any benefit from it directly. The benefit i get from it is that i know that a lot of people who would otherwise go to bed hungry in this country dont. There are a lot of other Government Programs will pay for that we dont get a direct benefit out of. So from a Social Security perspective the argument to that is at what level . Lets talk about that but at least lets have the conversation. If we dont have the conversation we know where it is headed, it is the same thing on medicare. Except a cut in medicare is in 10 years on 11. It is 25 not 24 its the same thing. I am not in favor of raising taxes. Because i think we pay more than enough in taxes already. By the way if you take some cap off of the Social Security tax and raise it to another level the people who are going to get hurt the most of the people who are in the middle class in this country. So the fact is that taking that cap off of it, i dont think it is smart economically and i dont think thats what we want to do. We have to have this conversation and we should have it. And nobody else in this state is willing to have it because theyre afraid. You know what, i am a republican from new jersey. It takes a lot for me to be afraid and im not afraid to have a conversation i think we should all have it as intelligent adults in this congress country. First thank you scott for having this. This is my third event and its very cool. [applause] and thank you governor christie for being here. My name is mike i grew up in claremont New Hampshire and some people here might remember bill clinton came there in the 90s with Newt Gingrich and they promised to do Bipartisan Campaign finance and here it is 30 years later and it seems to get worse every year. Every election is more expensive, theres foreign money, you mentioned george soros. We dont have the power to put any kind of regulations or limits so i am wondering, would you support a constitutional amendment not that it dictates any kind of solution but give freedom to congress and the states respectively, to be able to do campaignfinance reform in the way they see fit for their citizens. Governor christie no and let me tell you why. I dont trust the government to regulate our free speech in almost any way. I think we have seen a lot of this recently with what is going on in social media and other places where the government is got involved and who gets the post and who does not get deposed. Heres the truth. About money and politics. It will always be there. No matter what. Feingold came after that handshake with clinton and gingrich, came after the bush administration, this was supposed to be the thing that would fix everything and clean every thing up and i say this is a recovering lawyer. [laughter] lawyers will always look at a law and figure out how to get around it. Its what we got paid for. So heres what i think we should do. I think we should take all limits off of it, all of the laws out of it and make 24 hour disclosure. Every time you get a check from anybody in any amount you must disclose it publicly, on the web within 24 hours. Because what we are getting at with money is, the question is who influences us . Who is influencing us . That is why dark money, which was created by mccainfeingold, now you have all kinds of dark many groups who do not have to disclose who spend money on behalf of candidates or causes and you dont know where its coming from. You dont know who donated it or who is influencing it but let me guarantee you something, the people who are the beneficiaries of the money no. Know. So my view is very direct. I understand what the problem is. And i think the only way to fix the problem is sunshine. Put as much light on this so you know who i am getting money from. This is kind of ridiculous. You are running in a continental country, you have 50 states with their 350 Million People in the largest donation i can solicit is 3300. Think about running for president and trying to raise the money you need to campaign at 3300 a pop. At most. It is a waste of time. And it does not make the situation any better. Lets have anybody donate whatever they want but they have to give it right to the candidate and not other groups. Right here and any money that gets donated gets disclosed to you within 24 hours so you go on the website and see who christie is getting money from. And if all of a sudden you see me being, lets say, pro one issue. Lets say i am pro tax cuts and then all of a sudden a huge Government Spending group makes a huge donation to me. And a week later i say you know, i am thinking about this. I dont think we need to cut taxes i think its fine the way it is maybe we should increase taxes a little. And you look at that go alright i get it. He is bought and paid for by those folks. That is what youre really getting at the end. The influence, the corrosive influence of money. That is never going to go away. The only way to get rid of it is to inform you who we are getting the money from in that way you can make your judgment. As to whether or not i am being someone who is serving you or whether im serving the people who brought me the checks. And then you can make a decision how you would vote. Dr. Claremont it is good to see you. Watch those hands. [laughter] not a medical question but i watch the debate the other night and i appreciated your comments but i thought the moderators were horrible. I thought the inane question on ufos at the end [laughter] was an insult to the voters. We are trying to influence republican voters, independent voters and bring democrats on board and they are asking stupid questions. Why can she write up a bench of questions ahead of time of what you want to talk about and go for it . One after the other. It would make much more sense to me. I will ask you a tougher question, National Debt keeps rising. Why does it end, 50, 100 trillion . Medicare is going bankrupt. What one is the country going to go bankrupt . Governor christie technically when youre 32 trillion in debt it is a long way to paying off that mortgage so lets start with that. I want to come at first on what you said about the debate. Imagine i was the guy that got the ufo question. [laughter] its unbelievable. I was like seriously . Im getting a ufo question . We do not ask one question about the National Debt, not one on entitlements. Not one question on taxes. Not one. Yet we get asked a question about ufos and when we did, and i started to object to it, the moderator said well a lot of people care about this issue. [laughter] look we started that debate with Richmond North of richmond. Right . And we ended it with ufos. So i share your frustration. Now under substantive question. That is why i brought up at the beginning having inherited as governor of new jersey and 11 billion deficit on a 29 billion bet budget. That was ugly and by the way as you all know, when you are governor of the state you cannot print money or run a you have to balance it june 30, and if you dont balance it, the government closes down. So what we did was, we started zerobased budgeting. And we started it in that cycle. We said ok, we are not going to assume anything. Lets start at zero with every program and see where we go. What that led us to was we eliminated 680 three individual programs, completely. I dont think we wouldve ever done that if we hadnt started with everything at zero and then had to justify how we spent this money. It took us six weeks, meeting four hours a day, three days a week. Just on this. I would get done with one of the sessions and go ok, great. I have an 11 million deficit. So where are we now . She said under 4 million. It teaches you a different mentality in terms of how you look at spending. Im going to look at this stuff and say we are going to propose a budget that starts to bring the deficit and the debt down. Let me guarantee you, it will be unpopular. Because none of those programs got there because nobody wanted them. Everyone one of those programs hasnt advocate. Interest groups, lobbyists, or both. Some of them have extraordinarily Great Stories as to why they got created and what they tried to do for people in this country. But we better start saying no, because if we dont, we are going to become a second rate country. At some point people are going to stop buying our debt. A good chunk of that debt is being refinanced in the next five years. If Interest Rates stay about where they are now or even a little bit lower, the cost of our debt, just servicing our debt every year will be 1 trillion. Thats just paying interest on the debt. It is unsustainable. And so we need to do this, but when i do it, im telling you, because i went through this in new jersey. I popularity went from the high 50s to the high 30s. When i did this, and i said to my staff, look, either this is going to work or it is not. If not, you should get your resumes brushed up because we will be out of here. But we had no choice. We had to do what we had to do. New jersey is one of the highest tax states in the country anyway. I will bring the same approach to the federal government. If you start with zerobased budgeting, then everything is on the table. By definition, everything is on the table. So we will see where we go. We will be in negotiation with congress. It will be a fight, and i will be called every name in the book, but people said when i made those budget changes, governor, you will be a one term or. You keep doing this stuff, you will never get reelected. I said i dont really care. I really dont. Because i already get the portrait. You get elected ones, they paint a portrait of you, and the hang it in the state house. So years from now, god willing mike grandchildren will see it and say, the old man wasnt senile. He actually did something once upon a time. What you are arguing about is the little brass plaque that goes underneath the portrait. Whether it says four years or eight years, im not selling my soul for four more years on a little brass plaque. And having a portrait hanging in the white house, who the hell cares then . We got reelected four years later, the first time i got 48 of the vote in a threeway race and won by 1. 5 points. Four years later we got 61 of the boat and we won by 51 of the hispanic vote. 28 of the africanamerican vote. Thats what you do, what happens when you tell people the truth, even when they initially dont like it. The truth is much more important in this business than anything else. Years ago i was driving back from new york and i get a phone call saying that 20 kids got shot at an elementary school. I pulled up in my driveway and i just cried because i mentor kids around there. I think weve gotten so desensitized to these Mass Shootings come and i havent heard one candidate talk about gun control. The guy in las vegas was yawning because hes had so many rounds. It doesnt seem like anybody wants to address it. Its like the elephant in the room. My kids are 40, i am 60. But it just really bothers me that this country is so desensitized. I turn on the channel, nothing ever gets done. It seems like the needle doesnt move. If you just have six rounds in a clip, i contact you. What are your ideas about finally moving the needle forward to stop these Mass Shootings and keeping it on the forefront so we dont get desensitized and more people dont get shot up . I think we need to be honest about what the conflict is. We have a Second Amendment that says that every citizen in this country has the right to bear arms. And we have a Law Enforcement community and others who are out there every day having to confront what that means. For everyday folks in this country, and just mentioned a number of them all through the year and the shootings that weve seen. The question is, how do you do this in a way that makes sense, where people actually enforce the laws . I happen to think that we have enough laws on the books right now to be able to deal with this. The problem is we dont effectively enforce them, and we see this with everything from the hunter biden matter in a more public way to what im talking about off the top with prosecutors across the country being unwilling to prosecute violent criminals. And the message it sends out there is that, not that its ok, but that you are going to get away with it. Secondly, we have to deal with Mental Health in this country. And what you see from most of these Mass Shootings, the last one we saw at the university of North Carolina didnt turn out to be someone who did a mass shooting as a oneoff. You see people who have significant mental illness. And a lot of times there wouldve been no law that would have prevented it. One of the young men who shot up a school, his mother had legally purchased a gun. He stole it from his home, went there and committed those murders. So i dont want us to fall back on the view that there is anyone particular law that will stop this problem. It seems like everybody is paralyzed to move. We have enough conversation, but we dont have enough action. You are right. The reason people are paralyzed in my view from doing anything is because the politicians have gotten into their pockets. If you are on one side of this or the other, people dont just say you disagree, they say you are an awful person. People say you have no respect for the constitution or the Second Amendment. On the other side, people satan note new gun laws, people say you are an awful person that doesnt care about these people across the country. Theres got to be away for us to come to the middle of this and say to each other, for instance, one of the things i did in new jersey was we made it easier for folks who are mentally ill to be voluntarily committed if they have and voluntarily committed if they have spoken on social media or publicly about committing a violent act. We need to give those people an opportunity even if they dont want one to get an opportunity to be treated. Its much too late afterwards. If i thought that banning any particular weapon would save all kinds of lives, i might consider it. But i dont think it would. Think in the end, we have to treat the person with the gun. We have 350 million guns in the United States. We have 330 Million People. We have 350 million guns. So even if tomorrow we decided to ban any new guns of any kind, were still dealing with 350 million of them out there in circulation. In some of the worst people obviously dont follow the laws at all. So i dont think that would work either. Giving you my answer, which i which i just did, think me wholly inadequate. I get in his business to try to solve problems. I would love to have like a four point plan for you to solve this problem. I dont. And the reason i dont, i dont think there is one that is easy. I think its going to take time and i think we have to focus on what is driving people to commit these acts. If we do that, we are honest with each other and we desensitize people, nobody gets a stigma for going and getting treated for diabetes or cancer or heart disease, even though there are personal choices and actions that contribute to all those. When someone has a Mental Health issue, somehow we dont talk about that, and there is a stigma to it. I think it is important for us to be honest with each other about this. We will go for about another 15 minutes. Thanks for coming, governor. This was buried by corporate media, but on friday the louisiana fifth circuit held up the ruling that the Biden Administration absolutely infringed on our First Amendment right in the social media case. They said it was the worst assault on the First Amendment that a government in american history, all we hear from the left is us crazy republicans are threat to democracy, and clearly this is a threat to democracy. These are Constitutional Rights, we are tired of seeing them tremble. I think this playbook is going to happen any a year and half again, and then if your president , what do you do to get the government out of our face . We were talking about the issue of free speech and the campaignfinance area. Once you get into what people can say and what they cant, its a very dangerous area, and people will rationalize doing things like the Biden Administration did. I think it is just dead wrong and it wasnt really what their motivation was, in my view. The motivation was to suppress speech they didnt want to see and that was contrary to their political issues. Essentially thats what the ruling said. But we need to do about it, first off, he goes back to rule of law and law and order. Thats why i gave the answer i gave to your question as well. We dont have inferior Constitutional Rights. Everyone one of those rights in the bill of rights was well thought out, most of political leaders in this country who thought they were important enough to make them constitutional. So the first thing is, we need to have a president who respects the constitution. And right now, its obvious from what Joe Bidens Administration is involved in, he does not. But weve got to be honest, too. When donald trump said it would be ok to suspend the constitution if he thought the election had been stolen from him, no. It is never ok. The oath that i hope to take in january 2025 makes me swear to god that i will preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. Not suspend. So both sides have done things, differing degrees of gravity. When you violate our constitution i dont think there is any graver crime you can commit than to do that. Some days the constitution will cut in my political favor and some days it will cut against. My job is to figure out how to operate with respect inside the constitution. Second, weve got to stop appointing attorneys general who are the wing man for president. It started with obama, he appointed eric holder. There was all kinds of stuff going on in the country that should not have. Jeff sessions was a lousy attorney general. And now this character, merrick garland, is not covering himself and lori in any way. Because they are hard to be the president s lawyer. Guess what, the attorney general is not the president s lawyer. The attorney general is the lawyer for the the United States of america and its people. His job first and foremost is to defend the constitution and enforce law and order. I would say this to them, go off and do your job and with respect to any crime, come back and talk to me. Follow the constitution without fear, favor, or bias of any kind. If you do that and it is against me one day, that is my problem. It is not your problem. We need as a country to once again understand what free speech really means. It means we have to listen to people that we horribly disagree with. We are so divided in this country now and we only watch the news that we agree with. We dont want to go to cocktail parties or dinner parties were someone supports the other side. We get up and leave. It never used to be that way. That is a lack of respect for free speech. I love these town hall meetings, i really loved them when i did them in new jersey. I did over 150 of them through the time i was governor. There were a lot of times when people really gave it to me. Sometimes i thought unfairly. But you know what, that is free speech. We need to go back to recognizing that if you really want to be a First Amendment protector, you protect the speech of the person whose opinion absolutely sickens you and you think is awful for the country. But im going to defend that man or woman try to say it because i dont want when the government is not in my control and its something they dont like and they prevent me from saying it. This is the big government, it is bigger than liberal or conservative. I want the government out of my business. I dont want them telling me what to do. Weve got republicans in this race who want to do that. Governor desantis is down there kicking the hail out of disney. I dont like some of the stuff disney did. But its their choice to do it. If i went against every person who posted a bill when i was governor, thats what i wouldve spent my time doing. People with sound like what Governor Desantis is doing about disney. Do you really . What happens when the next governor puts forward a really liberal piece of legislation and he comes out against it. I guarantee you those people who are on the conservative side like me, they would say, that i dont believe the governor should be able to do. My mother taught me this along, go. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, right . Weve got to respect speech on both sides. Whats so disturbing about that Court Opinion is that it was absolutely intentional. What the Biden Administration did, they did on purpose. They did it on purpose to support in the same way in florida, we should not be penalizing companies who speak out against what we are for. Maybe because i come from a blue state so i see this argument all the time. Weve got to win the argument, not break the law, or take Constitutional Rights away. Lets beat it. I think where the party that should win because i think our ideas are better. If we act consistent with the constitution, we are going to do fine. Thats what i would do if i were president. And by the way, theres a whole lot of people in the government, so when youre president you got to get rid of a lot of them, and we should. We should have people who serve the government who are fair, to do their job without fear or partisanship. I wanted to change something one time and there was a career person in the department of human services. I had her in my office and in the midst of that meeting, i got up to take a phone call from my wife. I picked up the phone, but my wife had put me on hold. They didnt know that, they thought i was listening to her because i wasnt talking. The one woman turned to the other woman and said dont worry, just ignore him. We were here when we got here and we will be here when he leaves. She sat back down and we talked, i took the entire program that she ran and i moved it to another department. She called me and said what in my supposed to do now . I said, lady, go home. Because im going to be here longer than you, as it turns out. Weve got about 10 more minutes. We are going to segue into my question. Some of your opponents have called for the abolishing of some of the departments like fbi in the education department. Are there any that you would abolish all together . Im going to give a speech in the next couple of weeks on education. I think we need to go to a complete educational freedom agenda in this country. Think about this. 39 of our eighth graders cannot read at grade level. 39 . 25 of our eighth graders dont do math at grade level. And we are spending 400 billion a year in this country on education. I think its time to take the educational system in this country away from the Teachers Union and return it to parents. Let parents make the decisions about what to do. Weve talked about this before. Im a product of the public schools. I got a Great Public School education. My wife went to Parochial School from keight. You know who runs the show in the christie house. But we made the decision that we want to send our kids to Parochial School. We thought they would reinforce the values we are trying to teach our kids at home. That is our choice as parents. Every parent should be able to make whatever choice they want. Pick the education that you believe is best for your child. That is one area i would look at. I would not eliminate the fbi. This is one of the stupidest ideas ive ever heard. 75 of fbi employees will be eliminated and the remaining 25 will be distributed around to other departments. Homeland security, by the way, is averse department of any department in the government. Unresponsive to people, its a mishmash put together by congress. I think Homeland Security, whenever you do anything in the heat of passion, it often turns out not to be good. Homeland security has put together thats was put together in the heat we were all feeling after the event that happened 22 years ago today. I was in Law Enforcement at the time, and im telling you, everyone of the people who were in the department of Homeland Security dont want to be there. It was a bad idea that the time. It has been executed poorly and we need to revamp it. The fbi does extraordinary work in this country. And theres a lot of Politics Around it now because of the prosecutions and the investigations that have gone on. But in the end, every day, if i told you 22 years ago tonight that there would not be another foreign terrorist attack on this soil for 22 years, no one wouldve believed me. But it is the work of men and women at the fbi and our intelligence agencies, our Law Enforcement agencies that have made that a reality. Dont throw that out. For a soundbite at a debate, to make yourself sound like youre really smart and aggressive when youre a really shallow and only 38 years old. Im going to take the last question, im sorry, but you can certainly come up and speak to him after. So how do you bring it home . The former president has a commanding lead in the polls. How do you bring it home . I thought that question was quite relevant, so i stole it. Look, this is it. New hampshires going to decide whether we will have the rule of law with respect to this country or not. New hampshires going to decide whether law and order applies to everyone or just some people. New hampshire will decide whether we will have another four years of joe biden or not. New hampshires going to decide. I have complete confidence in the people of this state that when you have the opportunity to really think about these issues, you will think about them the right way. I think that if donald trump is our nominee, he will lose. He lost to joe biden before. The only person ever to lose to joe biden outside the state of delaware. It doesnt mean the election was stolen. So we can have that happen. We just cant. Whether you think any of the treatment of the former president is fair or unfair or a mix of both, in the end, weve got to start nominating people who can win again. We lost the house in 2018, we lost the white house in 2020, we lost the senate in 2021, 2022 we lost two more governorships. When i left, we had 31 governorships. We are now down to 26. We are two way from being minority governments. And we lost another seat in the u. S. Senate in 2022. It was supposed to be a red wave. Why . We had the leader of our party who was picking candidates based upon whether they would agree with him in the election had been stolen or not. That was it. You had a nominee for senate in this state who said all through the primary election was stolen, im not changing horses in midstream. Im going to do this. The day after the primary, he went on fox news and said ive been thinking about this. He said maybe it wasnt stolen. People dont expect that kind of move. These are all the things youve got to think about. And the reason i believe that New Hampshire can and will do it is because i have seen you do it before. When everybody thinks theyve got you figured out, you are not. And by the way, we talk about polls, i will talk about the fact that ive been in this race for three months. In the last poll i was at 14. In second place ahead of ron desantis, ahead of mike pence, only behind one guy. And you will notice that he is not coming to the debates. He has lots of awful, horrible things to say about me. The only people he says bad things about army and ron desantis. He thinks we are possibly the only two who could beat him. Nikki haley cant quite figure out if she is for orbit or against him. Mike pence he is deeply disappointed in, but hes not spending time talking about him, either. Heres what i promise you. I will not lead in New Hampshire in one poll until election night. Not until election night. In the same way john mccain did not lead in one poll in 2000 until he beat george w. Bush by 18 points on primary night in 2000. People in New Hampshire are smart. If New Hampshire gives me the votes to be donald trump on primary night in New Hampshire, everything will change overnight. I think much of the former president support is based on inevitability. The minute they know that it is not a foregone conclusion, and they will know that because of what you all do, the whole race changes. I came up here for scott. I have been up here as a president ial candidate eight years ago. I spent a lot of time in New Hampshire. What all of you tell me is that you take this response ability seriously. By your presence here tonight, your proving that. Take this was possibility seriously. You are going to determine the future path of our party and the future path of our country. I got into this because no one was willing to take it directly to donald trump. It got confirmed for me and you on that debate stage three weeks ago. No one else was willing to take him on. In fact, one of the guys running said he is the greatest president of the 21st century. Put all your money behind him and get him elected. I want to make it really clear why. Because i dont want joe biden for another four years. And worse even i dont want Kamala Harris for any number of years. That is what we are facing. So im going to be here, im going to be fighting. You will never have to wonder what i think. Anything else i can happen doesnt really much matter. You will hear the same thing out of me. Thats why i didnt raise my hand and you will never see me raise my hand that it is ok that a convicted felon is the president of the United States of america. Lets establish that here, and if you do that, im telling you, i will win the nomination, and i will beat joe biden. I have no doubt in my mind about that. Yes, i think joe biden is going to run. I think he will continue to run until he cant run anymore. I am not wishing this on anybody, but if he has some really Serious Health problem, remember something. These days are precious days. I want you to go to all of them. I want you to listen to everybody. They deserve to be treated seriously. I have respect for anybody who is willing to put themselves forward in this way. In the end, i just want you to listen. I believe that if you listen and you are guided by what you believe is best practice for your family, best for your state, and best for our country, then i will earn your vote. We do that, i promise you that im going to restore faith and trust and decency to the presidency. It has been a while in my view since we have had it. What matters is that this country continues to stand for what it has always stood for. I want to thank scott and gail. Great job great job. What i like to do now, we have an interview upstairs, but if it is ok for people to come up and say hello and get pictures. We will bang it out, and then go get a hot dog and a beer and drive home. [crowd murmurs] [crowd murmurs] [crowd murmurs] [crowd murmurs] [crowd murmurs] [crowd murmurs] [crowd murmurs] [crowd murmurs] nding cuts. In the five weeks i have been gone, the department of justice continues to prosecute their political enemies while leaving criminals run rampant across our streets. The president disrespected the people of hawaii after their houses were burned down. Alejandro mayorkas is daring us to impeach him. He cannot be bothered with what the law says. American citizens are being forced to compete against people coming illegally every single month across our southern border. People are dying from fentanyl and there is not a thing being done about it. We are tired of the washington theater, nothing we are doing is change in their lives. A government that tells you you cannot buy the stove you want is a government of tyranny. Were here to put our foot down and say to this place right here, it stops now. The power of the purse is in the legislature. And the way you stop all this craziness of the Biden Administration, the tyranny of the Biden Administration, is to stop giving them money. With that, i turn it over to the great senator from florida, mr. Scott. Sen. Scott thank you, chair perry. Lets look at whats going on here. Weve had a 1. 8 increase in our population since 2019. The budgets up 55 . Would anybody do that with their personal life . Nobody would to that. Thats 400,000 of new spending per new person. Its unconscionable what theyre doing. Were never going to get inflation under control. We got now if you want a mortgage, its over 7. 5 . If you want a car, your Interest Rate is at the highest in 23 years. If you have a credit card, highest rate on credit card in history. The Biden Administration, their economics is hurting all of our families. I thank god what the Freedom Caucus is doing in the house. If they dont stand up, nobody is standing up. They stood up on the debt ceiling and they fought for a great bill. Unfortunately it didnt end up that way but they fought for a great bill. Weve got to stop this insanity. On top of that, in my state weve had two hurricanes. I cant make sure the federal governments funded to even take care of disasters. The federal secretary of agriculture wont even give money to my farmers and my ranchers for the hurricane 11 months ago. So i have a bill that were going to get that done also. But thank god for these people standing up here or this will not change. Now im going to turn it over to this gentleman. Thank you, senator. Thank you to my friend, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, scott perry, and all my colleagues here and friends who are representing people from across this country who are fed up. Mr. Roy theyre fed up with a government theres out of control. And heres the thing. Our founding fathers, in creating this country, created separation of powers. It is incumbent upon those of us with election certificates, particularly in the house of representatives, but also the senate, to stand up at this end of pennsylvania avenue and hold the other end of pennsylvania avenue and the executive branch accountable. A president and an executive branch that is out of control. My question for my colleagues, particularly my republican colleagues, is when is it enough . When is it enough to stand up and do what you campaigned to do . And use the power of the purse to stop this administration from trampling the American People . Spending is out of control. Federal government will spend 2 trillion more than it takes in this year, to fund the very agencies and programs at war with the American People. Inflation is imposed at 17 tax on americans. Weve added 1. 5 trillion in debt since the socalled debt deal. We are now spending more on interest on the debt than we are in defending the United States of america. The department of defense is threatening our National Defense by turning our military into a social engineering experiment wrapped in a uniform. Covid tyranny is rearing its ugly head again. It was announced today, c. I. A. Whistleblowers told the Covid Select Committee that the c. I. A. Bribed its own analysts to deny the Wuhan Lab Leak theory. Yesterday the f. D. A. Approved new covid19 boosters for children as young as 6 months old, and we havent even had clinical trials. Were funding a Health Care System broken by washington and big insurance while average americans foot the bill. Energy, were destroying our ability to have reliable energy, the inflation reduction acts 1. 2 trillion handout to unreliable wind and solar, Big Corporation and rich leftists, and the Chinese Communist party remain in effect right now. D. O. J. Advancing a politicized form of justice, targeting former president trump, targeting dads like scott smith in louden county, which the governor just pardoned. A man in philadelphia, pennsylvania, for defending his son. And perhaps most of all for texans, and particularly for new yorkers these days, perhaps people paying attention to a