Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie made appearances on Monday night and Tuesday morning on GOP-friendly Fox News Channel — and used part of the first appearance to tell the Republican base about his support for certain gun control measures.
In an interview Monday night with Sean Hannity, Christie agreed with the host that New Jerseyans' tax burden (at all levels) amounts to 60 percent of their income. He talked about the candidacy of Chris Daggett and the visits from President Barack Obama and about unemployment and the economy.
Asked if there are issues on which he's moderate or to the left, he said, "I favor some of the gun control measures we have in New Jersey" and was interrupted by Hannity shaking his head and saying, "Bad idea."
Christie: "We have a densely populated state and there's a big handgun problem in New Jersey. Now, I don't support all the things that the governor supports, by a long stretch. But on certain gun control issues, looking at it from a law enforcement perspective, seeing how many police officers were killed — we have an illegal gun problem in New Jersey."
Hannity: "Should every citizen in your state be allowed to get a licensed weapon if they want one?"
Christie: "In New Jersey, that's not going to happen, Sean."
Hannity: "Why?"
Christie: "Listen, with the Democratic Legislature that we have, there is no way those type of things –"
Hannity: "Would you support it?"
Christie: "Listen, at the end of the day, what I support are common sense laws that will allow people to protect themselves. But I also am very concerned about the safety of our police officers on the streets. Very concerned. And I want to make sure that we don't have an abundance of guns out there." He then finally extricated himself from the issue and turned the focus back to the economy.
This morning he was back to visit Fox & Friends. Host Gretchen Carlson said Corzine declined the show's request for an interview. But it played excerpts from his Monday visit to Fox 5 in New York and allowed Christie to talk about his urban education platform. And in this interview, as in Monday's with Hannity, he said the race is a referendum on Corzine, not Obama. "New Jersey's problems are very specific to New Jersey, and we need to fix those problems, and they need a change to be able to do it."
