number of indian citizens. i think it would be real smart for us to continue in conversations with and cooperations with india on those issues i think we have a prime minister who is interested in having a relationship with united dates and making it even stronger. it is a huge market for american products as well. paul: you are discussing this in your initial comments, the funding of the military. this is from brad, a native of new jersey. he asked given the depth of problems surrounding the u.s., how can we have foreign policy and defense needs? paul: governor christie: we have to -- we have to take out entitlement reforms and reestablish funding we have. right now 71% of federal spending is entitlement. we should continue -- we won't have any money to spend on anything else if we continue. interest rates go up, then things are going to get really interesting. that is why we put out a detailed plan on entitlement reform, saving $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. we have to reapportion spending we have now. we cannot spend any more. we can reapportion how we spend. and i would. and i think we have to and more on national defense and intelligence. i would be an advocate for spending more on the national institute for health and national science foundation to continue to partner with the private sector and intelligence community to bring cutting-edge whether it is in medicines or weaponry. we need to continue to do it that. but we have to get this entitlement situation under some measure of control if we don't it will eat everything else alive. paul: two questions on cyber security. what is the role of the federal government and making sure the private sector is safe and secure from cyber theft? governor christie: there is an enormous role for the federal government and that on intelligence and law-enforcement sides. we need to me making sure we are interacting hand in glove with major fire it -- private sector operators to try to protect what is going on. it is one of the real threats going forward. in new jersey, we are the first date is set up a separate cyber security operation to protect the state governmental assets and acids for people in the private sector partnering with the federal government. and with our joint terrorism task force, that works together with the fed and state and local folks. this is a really important thing for us to be focused on. the next war me be a shooting war. in may be a war that happens over computer systems. and the infrastructure that runs our banks our power companies. you can go through in entire list of ways that it can become very dangerous and destabilizing for the united states. we need to work very closely with the private sector, because so much of america's infrastructure is controlled in the private sector. paul: and not his next great at all, but when it comes to cyber attacks, it seems to be coming from china. it looks like beijing has a hand in all this. what do we do? governor christie: we have to continue to work to have our relationship with china involved. -- eve off. i don't want to see china as an enemy. i think they are a potential adversary for influence in the world, and we need to make sure we are working with them in a way which makes three things clear. first that we want to be their friends. we have worked hard to have a relationship over time, and we want to be their friend. we are not looking to make an enemy out of china. nor do i think china should want to make an enemy of us. they are trying to grow their economy and a vibrant middle class. they need american markets and access to do that. second, we need to make sure that we are continuing to have regular communications with the chinese that sent out clearly what our goals and objectives are,. let's listen to what the chinese goals and objectives are. see the places where those can be married. and third we have to be very clear that once we start, they can test the limits of patients. we have to have respect for each other's sovereignty. cyber attacks against the united states is an attack on american sovereignty. we are not attacking chinese sovereignty, and especially i would be clear to their leaders, that will not be received well. they need to measure twice and cut once if they are thinking about participating in those kinds of things. all those things have to be part of the approach of china. if you are just belligerent that will not help. if you don't talk to them specifically about the things that are out of bounds, then you leave yourself open for misunderstanding. [inaudible] paul: then thin in chattanooga. it has been a big discussion about whether we should be arming military recruitment centers. we all know what is going on here, and let the governor said. let's hear your thoughts. governor christie: we should be. we trust these men and women with the most sophisticated legal weapons man has ever developed, yet we are not going to trust them with a handgun to be able to defend themselves? doesn't seem to make sense to me. george bush 41 made this decision in the early 1990's. this is pre-9/11, pre-the first world trade center bombing. the world has changed. this is adding knowledge meant that the world is changing, the mere wearing of a uniform of the american military makes you a target. we need to acknowledge the world has changed. we need to allow these men and women who defend us to defend themselves. [applause] paul: national security covers other topics that are very hot right now. that is border security and what to do about the problem with illegal immigration. a lot of your rivals have talked about beefing up the borders. i have a question from carlos. he asks, your thoughts on a comprehensive immigration going forward. governor christie: first on the border, i think four things need to be done. to help make the border more secure. the first is we need to build a wall or fence in those areas where it makes the most sense. when i said that, let's be clear. i'm not for building a wall along the entire 2000 mile border of the united eights. i don't think it makes sense. it doesn't make common sense. in the end what we want to do is build walls it in areas where it makes the most sense to do so. he does not make sense to do it over the entire 2000 mile border. i have never seen a wall or a fence in human history that a determined human being could not get over, under, or around. let's not get lured into this chest thumping call sense of security for folks you advocate that. in some places yes, across the whole border, no. second, we need to not only beef up border security agents that we need to involve a much greater depth, the fbi, dea and atf. criminal activity is there. dread running across borders needs to be interdicted by professionals -- professional law enforcement. we need to have a greater presence. third, electronic surveillance. we need to be using drones and cameras along the border and the more difficult parts to be about to see where activity is going on that is problematic and use those things to do play human assets to those areas to be able to firm them up. fourth, inc. most importantly every business in america should be required to use e-verify. and the fine for hiring people who are here undocumented need to be so large that it will wipe out any type of profit motive that goes into hiring people who are here as cheaper labor because they are undocumented. there are a lot of republicans who don't like to talk about that, because it is a direct shot at the business community that is supportive of us. but lots of undocumented people in new jersey, i have broken to them, none of them have ever said they came here to vote -- i have spoken to them and none of them have said they came here to vote. the path of citizenship is not the goal. they all said they came here to work. if that work is no longer available to them, they won't come over the border to seek it. if you want to secure the border you have to do all of those things. if you don't, there is no way you could secure the border with all four of those items. as far as comprehensive reform, the fact is that's already something we need to do with the 10-12,000,000 people already here. the american people will not put up with talking about that until you get the first part done. you have to have a plan that may give them a sense of comfort that you are not going to add to that 12 million problem. we should agree on two fax that will help to guide us. the first is these people are not going to self deport. many are now children who are american citizens. they are not leaving voluntarily. secondly i can tell you from a law-enforcement perspective there are not enough local county, and state law enforcement combined in the entire country to be able to forcibly deport 12 million people. if both of those things make factual sense to you, whether you like them or not if you say that is the truth, and gives it a narrow lane of the options available. let's see if we can have agreement on border security, an agreement on what the range of options are for the folks who are already here and then the last piece is, let's not be the anti-immigration party as the republican party. we are not. we are not the anti-immigration party. in fact, we believe as a party people who want to come here on a legal basis. my great-grandfather was in sicily. he wanted to come to the united states. he went through the process legally. when his ticket got called, it was his time to go, my great-grandmother was nine months pregnant. and they got on that boat. they got on the boat, and my great-grandmother gave birth to my grandfather in the middle of the atlantic ocean on their way to the united states. i can't imagine what that had to be like. this led to my mother constantly teasing her father, you're nothing, you're not italian you're not american. you were born in the middle of the ocean. [laughter] my grandfather died when i was nine years old, so i have very few memories of him. that is one of them. his reaction to that was violent. he would get read in the face and he would say, you don't say that in front of my grandson, i'm an american. they made me an american. my grandfather was very proud of the fact that his mother and father took the risk they took to come over, and to come to this country to help build the country and make that are lives for themselves. my grandfather was a mason as well for a good part of his career. they believed in hard work, and they helped to build north new jersey and jersey city, literally build it with their hands. we cannot lose that in this country. we need to have people who come here legally who want to continue to believe the truth about our country. if you have a great idea and you work hard enough, you can become anything you want. two generations removed from the guy who was born on the boat on the way over, his grandson is running for president of the united states. we don't want to lose that in this country. [applause] paul: a few minutes left. let's ta -- tackle other questions. what are your plans to tackling isis? governor christie: i get that the president has figured out they are not jv. he said he had a plan to degrade and destroy isis, but then he came back and said strategy against isis. this type of vacillation and indecision in public and golden the enemies. let's be really clear about what i would do. we have four allies in the middle east who have a real motivation to want to bring the fight to isis. the egyptians, jordanians, and varieties and saudis feel as if isis is a threat to their nation. they want to fight them and we should encourage them to do so. we should encourage them or waste. -- in four ways. first we should arm them with the most modern and legal weapons. second, we should be training them to the battalion level. not high-level training, training all deleted the battalion level to make sure they are prepared and ready to fight. third, we should make sure that we give them the type of air support that they need to be able to do the things they need to do their and work in conjunction with their air forces. and fourth, we need to make sure that we provide them with the type of intelligence capability that will let them know where the best and most effective targets are. isis is not a nationstate. this is not a set of borders. they are in iraq, and syria. we know they are looking to spread capabilities to other parts of the region. our intelligence capability has to be a large part of supporting these allies. that i did not mention american boots on the ground. i don't believe this is our time to do that. it is their neighborhood and we need to give them the opportunity to clean it up themselves. [applause] but as president, you cannot take the option off the table. you can't say you cannot under any circumstances send american troops to fight isis. circumstances can change, the situation deteriorates, and it can become an even bigger threat. but i think right now, given our history in iraq and the concern about america being an occupying force, we do not want to make the lead on this effort. we want to lead to come from the emirates and egyptians. would they need to know we are not going to back off support the first sample numbers go down. given the president contact with syria and iran, they need confidence rebuilt by a new commander in chief. paul: you just mentioned syria. what is america's national interest in the area, and how would you achieve that? governor christie: we can see unrest in syria has led to the growth of isis. again, these things are not necessarily done in a linear way. it is dynamic. events occur other people react and then we have new circumstances we never thought we would have to deal with before. i also do think the american people have an interest in preventing genocide around the world. the fact is, 220,000 syrians have now been killed by their own government. after the president of the united states said he would not let it happen. we need to understand that america's role as a leader also calls us to be able to try to make sure that folks in the world were the subject of genocide are protected. and we deal with those countries in a way that will make it clear to others that this is unacceptable. our interest is not only in trying to contain and hopefully rollback isis, by acting aggressively in syria supporting forces in syria that are opposed to the government and isis activity, but also we need to send a clear signal to the world that america and its allies do not want to see this type of genocide happening in the world. if you just look at what happened to jordan, because of the syrian situation, hundreds of thousands of syrians poring over the jordanian border. this is after the jordanians took on significant iraqi refugees and significant palestinian refugees. we have to be careful about what happens to jordan. they are a great ally of this country. if we can expect they will continue to be able to take this. the national interest in syria hundreds of thousands pour into the jordanian bowler -- border. what replaces that? what will those folks have as an attitude towards the united? dates this is why we need a much more strategic approach. my concern about the president besides the fact that he has not kept his word, is he is incredibly tactical. what i mean, there is not an overarching strategy. it is all one offs. i want an array need deal, so i won't press on syria. today i think syrian genocide is bad so i will work on that. or today i want to make sure the israelis like me. but now let's go back to that. the president's foreign policy is like a pinball in a pinball machine. it is bouncing all over the place, unwittingly. because he does not understand, apparently, that when you shoot the pinball up into the machine and it bounces off one of the bumpers, you don't know where it's going. sometimes it bounces back out and you have to hit with the flippers. sometimes it bounces all the way back up. the president does not understand that. that is why you have to have a strategy not a tactical one off strategy which he has had all around the world. the national interest in syria is because we have an interest in the region. and syrian unrest has led to an effect in other countries in the region, because of the emboldening of isis, and the strain it puts on allies like jordan and others. that is the interest. paul: moving from the middle east europe, the greek economy is a big headline. what are your thoughts on what is happening over there and the threat to us? governor christie: the threat to us is ourselves. we better not become greece. and we are heading in that direction. we are heading in that direction, given the gdp. the first thing is, greece should be a cautionary tale for us. we should take a look at greece, and say, if we don't get our house in order and deal with entitlements and economic growth, that is where we will be. i don't think it is a big enough economy to be a direct threat to the united states, but if the european union does not hold greece to a deal, a further degrading of the european union and its economy can certainly have an effect on the american economy. i think greece is the canary in the coal mine. what could happen if we are not intended to ourselves and to others in the european union. -- if we are not attended to ourselves and the european union. we need to make sure that leads to a greater sense of stability increase and across the eu. secondly, we should take a good long look at what is happening in greece, and the effect on the greek people. we don't want to go down that road in the united states. and the effect of a world economy, is unfathomable, like the united states. that is the significance at the moment. more of a cautionary tale. something to play -- pay close attention to. paul: we have time for one more. let me bring it back home. 10 years ago, that massive power outage in the northeast from the midwest all the way to new england. how would you secure the electric grid if you were president? governor christie: no matter what you do, it has had -- it has to be a joint effort between the private sector and the government. this goes back to the cyber situation we were talking about earlier. one of the ways they could attack us is the electrical grid. so much of the economy is based upon the ability to provide constant and reality reliable power. this will create great disarray and fear in the country. we immediately thought terrorism when the lights went out. we are oriented differently. the fact is, the way to secure this is to have a strong stable partnership with the private sector who is administering and make sure we continue to invest in research and development both in the government and private sector to stay half a step or one step ahead of the people trying to shut us down. that will take investment. that is why your question was a really good one. the investments we need to make for our national security, part of it is weapons. not just weapons. it is issues like this. we will lead ourselves to being even higher tactical nation, which will have an inevitable drag on economic growth, or we will lead ourselves wide open to the type of attack that can be stabilizing -- destabilizing. there has to be a partnership with the private sector, and something we are investing significant money in the development of technology that keeps us a half a step or. ahead of those who are trying to injure us. i will be a constant fight that is not ending anytime soon, as weapons of cyber warfare become more sophisticated. defenses have to become more sophisticated. they can be, but it takes a lot of work and investment on our part. the president -- with the president can do is to bring focus to the mission. what am i going to do to protect the electric grid? you better pray, nothing. i went to law school. [laughter] i have no capacity for math or engineering. what the president can do is bring focus to the nation. john kennedy had no idea how we were going to get a man to the moon and back in the early 1960's, and he said we would do it by the end. what he brought where resources and focus to a mission. the people who did know how to go about that did it. don't misinterpret what the president can and can't do. i'm going to protect the great. but i am going to lead and inspire a group of people in the public and private sector to make sure we stay ahead of those folks who want to do us harm. that is what a president is able to do, lay out the priorities for the american people in a direct and understandable way, so that they can say to their elected representatives, we like that and we can go do it. that is what leadership is. that is what we will do on that issue and dozens of others. in the time that i would get the chance to be president of the united states. paul: here is something a president can do, restore diplomatic relations. i'm bringing up cuba. how do feel about the president's actions? would you continue that in the white house? governor christie: first of all the president is dead wrong to do this. not to negotiate with cuba, but if cuba wants to be part of the civilized world, they need to be civilized. and they are not. this is personal to me. a new jersey state trooper was killed in cold blood by a woman who was arrested, tried, and convicted for murder. the black panther party, while she was being transferred, broke her out. she escaped cuba. she has been a fugitive for 40 years, supported by the cuban government. held up as an example of american imperialism. she is a murderer in the top 10 most wanted domestic terrorists by the fbi. while she is on the list and living in that country, this president takes cuba off the terrorist watchlist. while the family of the murdered state trooper's it's at home, mourning, this president will send american tourists to spend money to put in the hands of the castro regime. now, if the president wants them to be serious about being civilized, send her home. let there be some open ownership of property. every american tourist that goes down there, you're giving money to the castro regime. the hotels and restaurants are owned by the cronies of the castro regime. if you think you are doing some great thing for the folks working there, those folks are paid in pesos. the difference will be kept by the castro regime. i am all for having real discussions with cuba about bringing them into the group of civilized nations. once they give us some indication they will be civilized. the last piece is, think about the fact that all this is going on with the cuban government that does not allow access to the internet for the people. with a cuban government that has taken a position now that they want guantanamo back and reparations for the economic embargo. this is the president's negotiating style. he gives you his shirt, then they asked for your pants. [laughter] governor christie: and he is giving it. that is outrageous. if you give them normalization and an embassy without anything in return, people are going to go, we got a live one. let's see what else we can get. so i do not have any reason to continue to isolate cuba, the cuba needs to stop isolating itself through conduct. i would and it -- end it. sending home the fugitives they are harboring for starters. if you want to be civilized participate. [applause] governor christie: i heard president carter saying he could not name another relationship we have a better relationship with today than when president obama started. we should amend that. it is cuba. i cannot imagine the president will be proud of the legacy especially when they are harboring the murderers of law enforcement officers and leaving their families to mourn. paul: governor, we appreciate you joining us today. we appreciate you being here. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> great job. >> thanks for coming. >> go back to work. go get them. >> how about a picture? >> thank you. >> thank you, governor. >> i am from new york. we go to new jersey for the summer. we love what you have done for the state. we love the way you handle it. >> thank you. please tell your family thank you. >> i will. thanks for having me back. >> great to see you. >> i appreciate that. >> i babysat my kids in new jersey. i could not stay another day but i am here. >> thank you. >> governor, can you do a video for snapshot? >> sure. come to new jersey and spend time with us for labor day. >> i am an attorney for josie davis. thank you for your executive action. made a real difference. >> you made a big difference for us in terms of the way you got us the information. >> it worked out really well. i would love to get a picture. >> of course. >> thank you governor. >> i enjoyed your conversation today. my brother always supported you. we always supported you. lots of luck. >> thanks for being here. nice to meet you. >> you did a really good job today. you convinced me. >> i am glad. thank you. [inaudible] >> good. great. thank you for coming.

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