Chris Christie on Technology

In my first week as president we would ban TikTok

Pro-innovation: get government off the back of innovators

CHRISTIE: Each time we have shown incredible innovation and progress in this country, what we've done with it is to expand all kinds of opportunities. Yes, we have to do retraining for folks who lose their jobs. And we should have more training available both at the county college level and the local level.

But this is a much bigger issue than that. We can't be afraid of innovation. America has been the great innovator of this world: a technological innovator, a manufacturing innovator, and a freedom and governmental innovator. America has to continue to stand strong in the world, pro-innovation, pro-progress. As president, I will make sure that every innovator in this country gets the government the hell off its back and out of its pocket so that it can innovate and bring great new inventions to our country that will make everybody's lives better.

If China won't let our social media in, TikTok should go

$30B for NYC-NJ Gateway rail tunnel

But the Gateway project has had powerful Republican backers, including former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

Trump has been lured to support the project by New York and New Jersey politicians, including Christie (R-NJ), Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). Christie led a delegation to the Oval Office this year with Schumer. They engaged in chitchat with the president about New York infrastructure, with the president even asking somewhat technical questions about building tunnels. After their last Oval Office meeting, officials left saying that Trump was on board with the project.

The Chinese don't take us seriously, and why should they?

Let people play Fantasy Football; who cares?

BUSH: I think this has become something that needs to be looked at in terms of regulation. Effectively it is day-trading without any regulation at all. And there should be some regulation.

CHRISTIE: Are we really talking about getting government involved in fantasy football? We have $19 trillion in debt. We have people out of work. We have ISIS and al Qaeda attacking us. And we're talking about fantasy football? Can we stop? How about this: How about we get the government to do what they're supposed to be doing, secure our borders, protect our people, and support American values and American families. Enough on fantasy football. Let people play, who cares?

Focus on bipartisan reforms instead of Bridgegate

CHRISTIE: There was no climate in our administration that would ever permit that and the termination of folks who were involved I think proves that very clearly. [I focus instead on] our bipartisan record of having achieve property tax reform, pension and benefit reform, & tax cuts in New Jersey.

Bridgegate: Staff made some significant mistakes in judgment

Asked about the bridge controversy, Christie replied that large organizations are "inherently flawed because they are inhabited by human beings."

"Some people who worked for me made some significant mistakes in judgment," he said, leaving it at that.

Former Gov. Ted Strickland (D, OH) was on hand to ensure that the controversy was not cast off so tidily, saying he found it hard to swallow the claim that Christie was unaware of his administration's role in the lane closings: "Either the governor knew & he is lying or he is the most inept, incompetent chief executive imaginable.

Fired aides for Bridgegate: traffic jam as retribution

Christie has repeatedly denied he had any knowledge of or involvement in an alleged plot to cause massive traffic problems in Fort Lee, New Jersey, last year as a possible act of political retribution. He fired two of his top aides accused of orchestrating the incident, while a third resigned shortly before the story became national news. But now the issue is the subject of investigations by a state legislative committee and the Justice Department.

In a nearly 2-hour press conference last month, Christie defended his reputation as Democrats tried to characterize him as a spiteful leader. "I am not a bully," Christie said.

Eliminate all funding for NJ public broadcasting

Governor Christie Whitman, also a Republican, compared NJN to Pravda, the Soviet Union-controlled propaganda machine. Even Democrats, such as Corzine, had floated the idea of privatizing NJN.

Fast-forward to 2011, when Christie finally pulled the plug on NJN. After considering several proposals, his administration settled on a plan to sell NJN's 9 small radio stations for about $4.3 million (less than half of it in cash, and for less than the stations' appraised value) but hold on to the TV licenses and cut a deal with WNET, a NY-based public broadcaster considered the nation's flagship PBS station, to run the NJ operation, which was renamed NJTV.

Put more Motor Vehicle Commission functions online

• The MVC plans to introduce license renewals by mail during 2012 and on-line before the end of 2012. This will make it so that drivers will only need to visit a MVC facility once every eight years to obtain a new photo, which is required by federal law, resulting in less crowding at MVC facilities by potentially more than a million people a year.
• The MVC will begin the use of facial recognition technology in 2012.
• Service hours were expanded to 54 hours per week (the most ever offered), which includes evening service once per week, and Saturday service.