Chris Christie: Muslim-Americans fear Syrian refugees, too

Gov. Chris Christie (R, New Jersey) hosted a packed house party in Bedford Sunday afternoon.

Delivering a national security speech in Washington, D.C., Mr. Christie said that he understood Muslim-Americans because his state has one of the largest Muslim-American populations in the county.

However, the Republican presidential candidate but says he is starting to see some of the payoff of a summer and early fall of consistent campaigning in the Granite State. The president called them a group of killers who are good at social media.

Christie is just one of a long list of governors across the U.S.to take the position in the aftermath of the attacks, which have stoked new fears about the potential risk caused by the flood of migrants trying to escape from Syria’s brutal civil war.

With the new focus on national security in the race following the Islamic State attack on Paris on November 13, he has tried to make his experience as a US attorney in New Jersey prosecuting terrorism cases following September 11, 2001, a central argument for his candidacy. It was a theme he hit on during his speech on Tuesday as he defended he stance on the refugee crisis.

Christie has repeatedly said that in the in the wake of the recent terror attacks in Paris, he wants to know about the 75 refugees who have been resettled in New Jersey over the past 14 months.

“The goal and the intent of the American president has to be first and foremost to prevent another generation of those widows and orphans on American soil”, he said. He re-told another anecdote about a member of their church named Frank whom his wife helped get a job at the World Trade Center but was killed in the attack. When Donald Trump raised eyebrows over the weekend for saying he saw “thousands and thousands” of Arab-Americans cheering in Jersey City when the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11, Christie’s response was milder than that of other critics, with the governor saying he simply didn’t “recall” Trump’s version. “Bret, I don’t remember”.

And Joanna Gardener, spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Camden, the third major Syrian refugee resettlement charity in the state, said in a statement that the group has “always notified the New Jersey Department of Human Services of the refugees we are assisting”.

“I think if it had happened I would remember it, but there could be things I forget, too”, Christie said in Bedford.