New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie borrowed a line out of the Democrats’ playbook to knock Donald Trump on Thursday.
Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” which is emblazoned on his signature trucker hats, prompted the Democratic National Committee to respond with its own memorabilia. The DNC began selling similar hats that read “America Is Already Great.” During a town hall in Nashua, N.H., the governor echoed the Democratic Party’s barb at Trump.
“I’m not promising to make America great again because America already is great,” Christie said. “Government doesn’t make America great, the people make America great.”
Christie continued to argue that the premise of Trump’s campaign slogan is false and said the government “stops us from greatness.” The governor said he would not pledge to make America great again, but he promised to be “tough enough” to serve in the White House.
He preached a message of smaller government and said he would consider eliminating the Departments of Labor and Commerce and folding their responsibilities into other agencies of the federal government. The governor bemoaned the tax code, which he described as “rigged for the wealthy and powerful,” and smiled at the happiness firing IRS agents would bring the American people.
Christie, who ranks fifth in the Washington Examiner‘s GOP presidential power rankings, may not make the primetime debate stage in Milwaukee later this month. But the governor got a boost in earned media attention after the October presidential debate and millions clicked on a Huffington Post video of Christie discussing drug addiction. It went viral well after the story’s first telling.
At the town hall on Thursday, Christie acknowledged that “never in a million years” would he have expected the video to get such a large amount of attention. The governor said he now knows that in the 2016 presidential campaign cycle, “I got to say something you want to hear, and are willing to click on and stay on for 10 or 15 seconds.”
