New Jersey governor Chris Christie came out swinging against his rival for the GOP presidential nomination Marco Rubio Tuesday. In a Tuesday interview with radio host Laura Ingraham, Christie responded to Rubio’s claim that the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program could not be rolled back “immediately.”
The Florida senator told Univision host Jorge Ramos in April the DACA program, which exempts children who entered the country illegally from being deported, should “end at some point” in the future. “It cannot be the permanent policy of the United States but I’m not calling for it to be revoked tomorrow or this week or right away,” Rubio said.
Christie shot back on Ingraham’s show. “It’s hard to keep up with how many times Marco changes his positions on these things, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I’ve said very clearly that the president’s conduct here is illegal. And, it seems to me, I’ve been talking about lawlessness on the campaign trail a lot and it’s getting a lot of reaction; you can’t act in a lawless manner as the president of the United States and expect that people are going to follow you. And, not have a sense of the justice that applies to everyone in this country. If the president’s executive orders are illegal, which I believe they are, then they need to be revoked the first day you get into office.”
Christie also challenged Rubio to say whether he thought the DACA program, which was issued by Barack Obama through executive order, was illegal. “I don’t know why anyone would want to have someone who is not going to enforce the law as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States,” said the Republican governor. “You have to enforce the law, and if you believe, as I do, now maybe Marco doesn’t believe that the executive order is illegal, and if he doesn’t he should say that.”
It was a hard hit from Christie, who has sat in the bottom of the polls for several months while Rubio’s numbers have recently ticked up. But strong debate performances from Christie as well as the dwindling fortunes of Jeb Bush have renewed interest in the “tell it like it is” governor. Christie has improved on his favorability numbers among Republicans, which were pretty low at the beginning of the year, and a recent Quinnipiac poll found 59 percent of Republicans viewed him favorably, his best showing in Quinnipiac’s poll since 2011.
