Chris Christie in Fourth GOP presidential primary debate

On Families & Children: Less government control over parenting choices

Christie: No, because Republicans believe in less government, not more. I trust parents.

Q: When you were governor in 2017, you signed a law that required new guidelines for schools dealing with transgender students: to accept a child's preferred gender identity even if the minor's parents objected. It said that there is no duty for schools to notify parents if their son or daughter changes their gender identity. How is any of that pro-parental rights?

Christie: That's simply not true. That law was put into effect in 2018 after I was out of office. I stood up every single time for parents to be able to make the decisions for their minor children. And you know what? Every once in a while parents are going to make decisions that we disagree with, but the minute you start to take those rights away from parents, you don't know that slippery slope, what rights are going to be taken away next.

On Free Trade: Tariffs on China raise process for every American

Chris Christie: She said that Donald Trump was good on trade; he wasn't. And the proof that he wasn't good on trade with China is that all he did was impose tariffs, which raised the prices for every American. You want to know what has contributed to inflation in this country? Yes, it's more government spending. Yes, it's the fact that we're printing too much money. Absolutely. But it is also the increase in prices that were driven by Donald Trump's tariffs. And one last thing, you can't say he was good on trade because he didn't trade. He didn't change one Chinese policy in the process. He failed on it.

On Principles & Values: Authored 2024 book: "What Would Reagan Do?"

Christie: I would draw inspiration from Ronald Reagan. In the last year, I've spent a lot of time writing a book about President Reagan that's going to be called "What Would Reagan Do?" That book's going to come out early in 2024. And what I learned more than anything else was that Ronald Reagan was a slave to the truth. Ronald Reagan stood up for the truth, whether it was popular or unpopular at the moment. In 1964, he stood up against the John Birch Society when it was very unpopular to the party to do it, but he would not put up with our party standing for lies and deceit, even if it gave him political progress. That's the kind of president that I will be, and I would draw that inspiration from the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.

Washington Post explanation (1/15/21): The John Birch Society, founded in 1958, was fiercely anti-communist--and fond of crackpot theories. 

On War & Peace: I would send US military to defend Taiwan

Ron DeSantis: We will be able to deter that from happening. We have longstanding American policy [known as "strategic ambiguity," where the US doesn't promise to send US troops to Taiwan, or not--OTI], and we will follow that.

Chris Christie: I want to be really clear: if China went after Taiwan, you're absolutely right, I would, as president, have us go militarily and defend them.

Vivek Ramaswamy: I'm going to respectfully disagree with Ron here. At least for the foreseeable future, the US will absolutely defend Taiwan. The reason why we're not doing it for China, is because we're scared, because we depend on them for our modern way of life.

Christie: I'm not afraid based upon those economic relationships to do that because these economic relationships mean nothing. If what's going to happen is that China is going to come and act in that region of the world however they see fit.

On War & Peace: Damn right I'd send US troops to Gaza

Chris Christie: I would, absolutely. Absolutely. If they had a plan which showed me that we could get them out safely, you're damn right I'd send the American Army in there to get our people home and get them home now, and I'll answer that question directly.