Chris Christie Bashes Ron DeSantis As ‘Big Government Conservative’ Substituting His ‘Judgment for the Judgment of Parents’
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie bashed his fellow 2024 presidential contender Ron DeSantis over his battles on education and his war on “woke”, which Christie says show the leading non-Donald Trump candidate to be “big government.”
The exchange took place on the Thursday edition of Pod Save America when host Jon Lovett asked Christie for his thoughts broadly on the Florida governor.
Lovett told Christie that DeSantis “Seems like he wants to be tough, but not take on Trump. It doesn’t seem to be working for him.”
“I think we could all agree right now, including probably Ron, that it’s not working for him. I mean, when you fire a third your staff and you’re on your third reboot since May. You know, things are tough, but we’ll see what happens. You never know,” Christie said.
Levitt pivoted the conversation to DeSantis’ ongoing war against woke.
“Do you think that wokeness is as big a threat to America as Ron DeSantis does? Are you waking up in the night worried about people being woke?” Levitt asked.
“I don’t agree with much of it, but I think that we have much bigger issues that we should all be concerned about and discussing as much as that’s being discussed,” Christie replied.
“I think when it involves kids, we should let parents deal with that. And we don’t need the government in the middle of this stuff on either side of it, pushing an agenda one way or another. I think parents should be the people who are dealing with their kids on stuff like that,” Christie clarified.
“I’m not a big government conservative, and it looks to me like Ron is a big government conservative and thinks that he can substitute his judgment for the judgment of parents. And I think that’s a dangerous thing for either party to get involved in,” he added.
Levitt asked a question about trans teens, wondering what Christie’s view were if doctors and parents decided together that gender affirming care was best for a child.
“And you’re saying the government should not be allowed to step in?” Levitt asked.
“I don’t think it’s smart for them to do it. I don’t want to see people in government substituting their judgment for a parent’s judgment,” Christie said, elaborating that in his eyes, this was not intentional abuse by the parent to make these kind of decisions.
In addition to DeSantis, Christie also went after former President Donald Trump earlier in the conversation, saying he was “morally responsible for what happened on January 6th.”
“He invited those people there. He then gave a speech where he repeated the lie that the election was stolen. He told them to go march up to Capitol Hill and said he would march with them. I knew he wouldn’t when I was listening to it cause if there’s a risk of him breaking a fingernail, he’s not gonna get involved,” Christie said.
Watch above via Pod Save America.
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