Christie At Concord Town Hall: ‘We Need To All Get Sober Here’ — Watch

CONCORD, NH — For more than two and half hours, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pitched his candidacy to dozens of first-in-the-nation primary voters at Concord’s VFW Hall on Court Street on Monday.

While he talked briefly about his past, his family, and why he was running, most of Christie’s ire was directed at former President Donald Trump. The former president, he said, failed to fulfill his promises during his four years as president, lied about the election outcome in 2020, and had been indicted so many times it would hamper the effort of Republicans to beat President Joe Biden in 2024. Nominating Trump, Christie said, would be a guaranteed losing proposition for Republicans.

“We need to all get sober here,” Christie said, about 30 minutes into his town hall. “OK? This is a road to defeat.”

Christie based much of his reasoning for running on challenging the former president during the race and on the debate stage to keep him from the nomination. This was heralded by Democrats who attended the town hall and said they found him “interesting” and were “curious” and “intrigued” about his campaign. However, a few regulars at the VFW hall were audibly frustrated Christie was not speaking enough about himself and why he was running.

The former governor touched upon some specific issues that needed to be fixed — the national debt and deficit, Social Security by either means testing or raising the retirement age for workers under 50, giving them time to save and supplement their retirement, and tackling inflation, although not offering many specifics.

Overall, Christie was noticeably light on public policy initiatives compared to some of the other candidates running but offered commentary on what he might do differently.

During a question-and-answer period, Christie committed to supporting some proposals about fighting breast cancer offered by an attendee who approached him at a previous event sans expanding the Affordable Care Act. He also supported term limits — although worried about whether a constitutional convention could be held to address the issue. Christie also said he found problems with the PACT Act, addressing veterans’ health care, and he thought there were better ideas, including allowing veterans to get direct care from doctors outside the VA system. Christie supported the war in Ukraine, calling it a “proxy war” between the United States and China and challenging some asserting it was a territorial dispute.

“Are we in this to win, or aren’t we? I think we should be in it to win,” he said, adding, right after, “and for the Ukrainians to win.”

Christie also worried about China invading Taiwan if the United States abandoned Ukraine, which would put the semiconductor business in danger, never mind the island's people. He also said no Republican candidate was against “America first,” but helping Ukraine had no connection to putting the country before others. Christie also said the United States should give the country F-16s.

Christie said he also agreed that climate change “was real” but also said Americans were correct to be skeptical of the solutions.

“They think we’re getting screwed,” he said, “and Americans don’t like that.”

China and other countries, he said, were no longer genuinely industrializing; they had become developed nations. Christie said he was “for all of the above” energy solutions but also had to be realistic about the changes. If people do not want to buy electric cars, they should not be forced to, he said. He also said electric cars were a burden to the grid — which was still mainly powered by natural gas, oil, and coal, while some governors were trying to ban gas stoves.

“It’s like making it electric somehow makes it clean,” Christie said. “It doesn’t.”

Christie also pointed to California, which wanted to ban the sale of new cars that were not electric but also told consumers in the middle of the summer not to charge their vehicles because it would be a burden to the grid, to laughs from some in the crowd. He also came out in support of expanded nuclear power plants. Solar and wind should be developed, too, but energy efficiency on all levels, including oil and natural gas, should be the strategy.

Christie supported the Dobbs decision on abortion and said he did not support a federal abortion ban. He said pro-lifers had campaigned for years to have the states decide what they would allow, and the policy should be left in place.

Christie also challenged the Hunter Biden tax plea deal questioning the lack of a gun charge issued against him due to lying on the background check form — a violation of the law Joe Biden was the author of, he said. He challenged how serious Democrats were to enforcing current gun laws and wondered why it took years to come to the plea deal when such a light sentence should have only taken months. Christie said he knew that due to his many years as a prosecutor before becoming governor.

After two hours of speaking and answering questions, Christie signed books and took pictures with voters and spoke to Patch.

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