Governor first.
Happy Father's Day.
Thanks for joining us today.
Same to you, Jake.
Have a great day today.
So Trump on his social media
site is attacking former
Trump officials that, you know,
who have criticized
him over the indictment
they say he's saying
his former
chief of staff, retired
Marine General John
Kelly, has a very small brain.
For some reason,
he put brain in quotations, mark,
quotation marks.
He also called
Kelly a mommy who sat in his office
and stared at the ceiling.
Trump called his former
attorney general, Bill
Barr, a gutless pig, lazy
and totally ineffective.
What do you make of the comments
Well, look Jake
I stood on the stage in 2016
and heard Donald Trump say
he would wholly hire
the very, very best people
and he would know how to manage them.
But think about what happens here.
Here's what he says
about Rex Tillerson when he gets in.
He says he's the embodiment
of the American dream.
Former CEO of ExxonMobil
he said when he left,
he was what he said about him.
He's dumb
as a rock and lazy as hell about General
Mattis, Four-Star
General, Mad Dog Mattis.
He said he was our very best general
and that he was the closest thing
we had to Patton when he left.
He said he was the most overrated general
in American history.
You mentioned Bill Barr and John
Kelly already.
How about Mick Mulvaney,
who was his director
of the Office of Management Budget
and his chief of staff.
He said he was outstanding and brilliant.
And when Mick Mulvaney left,
he said he was a born loser.
Lastly, how about General Milley,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
He said he was a great American
and a great patriot
when he joined the administration,
when General Milley disagreed with them
and he left.
He called them
pathetic and a banking loser.
Now, look,
either Donald Trump,
if you believe what he said
when they left,
that means he didn't pick
the very best people
and doesn't know how to pick personnel.
If you believe what about them?
What he said at the beginning,
the great stuff,
then this guy is the worst manager
in the history
of the American presidency.
Either way, Republicans
should listen to what he says.
He's a petulant child
when someone disagrees with them.
And whether it's Bill Barr
or John Kelly or General Mattis,
whether it is Mick Mulvaney,
or whether it's Chuck
excuse me, General Milley,
if you disagree with Donald Trump,
the petulant child comes out and he calls
you names
like the ones you just mentioned
and the ones I mentioned.
So the RNC just said the candidates
have to pledge to support the nominee
in order to participate in the debates.
Former Governor Asa Hutchinson
He tried to get a carve out
so the candidates
would not have to be required
to support a nominee.
If that nominee is a convicted felon,
the RNC said, no,
you have to stand by the nominee
even if he or
she is convicted of a felony.
So if Donald Trump is the nominee, do you
will you pledge to support him
and vote for him,
even if he's a convicted felon?
Jake, I'm
going to go back
to 2016 again
and say I'm going to take the pledge
just as seriously as Donald
Trump took it in 2016.
As you remember,
Reince Priebus
had to go up to Trump Tower
to get him to sign it,
to ask him to do so.
He did.
And then we went to a subsequent debate
and we were all asked
if we would reaffirm our support
of whoever the nominee was going to be
by raising our hand.
There were ten of us on the stage.
Nine of us raised our hands.
The one who didn't. Was Donald Trump.
And so I'll take the pledge in 20, 24
just as seriously as Donald
Trump took the pledge in 2016.
What do you make of the fact that the RNC
is not allowing a carve out
even if the candidate in the nominee has
been convicted of a felony
look I
think the pledge
is is just a useless idea Jake.
And by the way in all my life
we never had to have Republican
primary candidates take a pledge.
You know, we are Republicans.
And the idea is
you support the Republican
whether you won
or whether you lost
and you have to ask somebody
to sign something.
It's only the era of Donald Trump
that you need somebody
to sign something on a pledge.
So I think it's a bad idea
I've expressed that.
So to Ronald Romney McDaniel
personally, directly.
So this is not the first time
she's hearing it.
But look, I will do what I need to do
to be up on that stage
to try to save my party
and save my country
from going down
the road of being led by three time loser
Donald Trump.
Loser in 2018 by losing the house, loser
in 20, 20, by losing the White House
and the United States Senate.
And the worst midterm
performance we've seen in a long,
long time,
led by Donald Trump, selected candidates
with Donald Trump
as the main issue in many of those races.
Loser, loser, loser.
Let's get to some issues.
You said at the CNN town
hall with Anderson
Cooper that the federal government,
quote, should not be involved
in legislating
around the issue of abortion
and that you wanted to leave it
to individual states
to sort out themselves.
So just to be clear,
if a Republican led Congress passed
any federal laws
putting new national restrictions
on abortion
as president you would not sign it
Jake, no.
Congress is going to pass
any type of legislation like that
until we have a consensus in the country.
Now, look,
this is a very very difficult,
contentious issue. I'm pro-life.
I ran as a pro-life candidate and
and governed as a pro-life governor
with exceptions for rape, incest,
and life of the mother
as the governor of New Jersey
for eight years in a very blue state.
People know where I stand on this issue,
but we have argued as conservatives
for 50 years
that this should not be a federal issue,
that Roe was wrong
and that should be an issue
decided state by state.
We now have that opportunity
to let states make that decision.
State by state.
Let's see what the states do
here and see
if they form a national consensus,
because there's no way
you're going to get 60 votes
in the Senate for anything
unless you have formed
a national consensus.
So I want the states
to go about doing their work.
Many have been arguing for 50 years
that they should have that chance.
I've been one of those people
arguing that for 50 years.
And as a pro-life candidate,
I want the states to weigh in here
and try to help us develop
a national consensus
on this issue
that a majority of the American people
can and will support.
Speaking of states
handling an issue,
Republican governors across the country
have been banning
hormone therapy
and puberty blockers
for transgender
people under 18 years old, though
only they're banning.
This procedure is only as trans
health procedures.
They can still do them for other purposes
puberty blockers, etc..
As governor of New Jersey,
you signed into law
some legal protections
for trans people, including students.
What do you make of
your fellow
Republican governors and candidates
going in the opposite direction?
Jake, what
I believe we
should be
focused on,
most importantly on these issues,
is making sure
there is parental involvement
at every step along the way.
I don't think that the government
should ever be stepping
into the place of the parents
in helping to move their children
through a process
where those children are confused
or concerned about their gender.
And I just would say
the parents are the people
who are best positioned
to make these judgments
And so what I'd like to make sure
each state does
is require
that parents be involved
in these decisions.
You know, you're talking about students.
I assume you mean people
under the age of 18, Jake.
And the fact is that folks
who are under the age of 18
should have parental support and guidance
and love
as they make all of the key
decisions of their life.
And this should not be one
that's excluded by the government
in any way.
You said that you would consider
raising the retirement age
for Social Security or cutting benefits
for wealthier Americans
in order to save the program,
which faces a real risk of insolvency
in the in the near future.
Democrats say that what they want to do
in some cases
is tax more
than just the first $260,000 of income
they want.
If you make more than $160,000,
they want to include
Social Security taxes
for that additional income.
Is that something
you might consider
what Democrats want to do
if it were part of a bipartisan plan
to save Social Security
Jake, I
dealt with this in New Jersey
over all my eight years.
The Democrats
answer every time to a fiscal problem
is raising taxes.
I would not raise taxes
on the American people over $160,000.
And the reason
is this in my state of New Jersey,
a couple making $160,000
is a police officer and a teacher.
Do I really think they should be paying
higher taxes here?
I don't.
Look,
I think if we
give people plenty of time to plan
and I'm talking about raising retirement
age for people
currently in their thirties and forties,
people
who are in their fifties and sixties
they have already passed
the time when they could do planning
for their retirement.
And Social Security
has to remain where it is for them.
But in people in their thirties
and forties,
we could save
a significant amount of money
for the program.
But let me remind everybody
that if we don't make any changes at all
by 20, 34,
what we're going to be dealing with in
ten years
is a 24% cut in everyone's benefit.
So we need to come up
with a bipartisan solution.
But taxes would not be a part
that bipartisan solution for me, Jake,
because I think
these Democrats in Washington
have placed enough taxes
on the people of this country
and they don't need more.
Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey,
thanks so much for joining us today.
Appreciate it.