Marco Rubio likened Chris Christie to President Obama during the GOP debate Thursday night, claiming that the New Jersey governor’s policies are liberal when it comes to gun control and support for common core.
“Chris Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama endorses, whether it’s Common Core, or his support of gun control, or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor, or his donation to Planned Parenthood. Our next president and our next nominee can not be someone who supports those positions,” Rubio fired at Christie when asked about his political action committee’s attack ads against Christie.
Christie rebutted Rubio’s attacks, explaining that he never supported Sotomayor or wrote a check to Planned Parenthood. He also detailed his support of the Second Amendment as well as his commitment to education.
On the campaign trail, Christie has been attacked for some of his seemingly liberal policies. But the blue-state governor has explained that his decisions were in the spirit of bipartisanship and were the best decisions for his state at the time
“This is the difference between being a governor and being a senator. When you’re a senator you get to just talk and talk and you talk so much that no one can keep up with whether what you’re saying is accurate or not. When you’re a governor you’re held accountable for everything you do, and the people of New Jersey have seen this,” Christie responded to the Florida senator’s attacks.
While Rubio leads Christie nationally by a large margin (11.8 percent-3.5 percent), the two compete closely in New Hampshire, where Rubio leads 13.2 percent-9.5 percent. Despite the Florida senator’s attacks, Christie refused to return the insult.
“I like Marco too,” Christie said. “Two years ago he called me a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed, that was before he was running against me. He changed his tune, I’m never going to change my tune. I like Marco Rubio. He’s a good guy, he’s a smart guy and he’d be a heck of a lot better than Hillary Rodham Clinton would ever be.”
