GOP candidate Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor, on Wednesday
rejected a claim made by rival Ted Cruz that most violent criminals are Democrats, saying that is something he did not notice "in my background and experience."
However, he told
ABC's "Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos that some things that get said don't "really matter in the end," as Americans are "really worried about the safety and security of their homes, of the homeland, and that's what I'm focusing on."
On Monday, Cruz criticized people who are linking last week's shootings at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic to anti-abortion statements being made by GOP presidential candidates and a series of underground videos showing transactions being conducted for fetal
organs.
"You know, every time you have some sort of violent crime or mass killing, you can almost see the media salivating hoping, hoping desperately that the murderer happens to be a Republican so they can use it to try to paint their political enemies," the Texas senator told conservative talk show Hugh Hewitt, reports
Talking Points Memo.
"Now, listen, here's the simple and undeniable fact: the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats. The media doesn't report that," he continued.
Christie, on the ABC morning show, also sounded a confident note on his campaign, even though he is running far behind Donald Trump and several other candidates.
"He's not going to be the nominee because I am," said Christie, when asked about news reports saying the Republican Party is concerned about Trump as the eventual nominee.
"I'm not worried about that. I'm not going to speculate about anybody else the nominee because I'm in this thing to win," he told Stephanopoulos. "We're gaining momentum in New Hampshire. And we're talking about the issues that people care about and we have been talking about those issues for months and that's why they're beginning to resonate."
Also appearing on Fox News' "Fox and Friends,"
Christie spoke out about Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and her
statements about not putting boots on the ground in the fight against ISIS.
"She changes her positions all the time," Christie said, noting that Clinton at one time called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "a reformer" and who had claimed that after former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and ex-Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi were out of office, the Middle East would be more stable.
"This is a woman who hit the reset button with Russia," he continued. "So why are we paying any attention to anything she says about foreign policy?"
He also spoke out about President Barack Obama's claims that ISIS has been contained, saying that the president gets "petulant and snarky and critical" when someone points out facts to him, and he doesn't listen to experts like FBI Director James Comey when he says Syrian refugees can't be vetted.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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