Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had choice words for GOP rival Jeb Bush over his comments on birthright citizenship, in an interview with Fox News host Megyn Kelly Tuesday evening.
Kelly asked Christie how the Republican party could avoid alienating Hispanic voters, while still appealing the wing of the party that wants a hard stance on illegal immigration.
“You don’t need to be pandering to one way or the other. I’ll tell the way you don’t do it: You don’t do like focus-group-tested trips to the border, speak Spanish, and then — you know — criticize Asians,” Christie said. “I mean, I don’t think that’s the way you do it.”
Kelly interjected, “He’s referring to Jeb Bush, for those of you who were at work for the past couple of days.”
Former Florida Gov. Bush received further criticism this week after he clarified his use of the term “anchor baby” to refer to a child who is considered a citizen, despite the citizenship status of the parents.
“What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed where there’s organized efforts, and frankly, it’s more related to Asian people coming into our country and having children in that organized effort,” Bush said.
Christie discussed other facets of his rivals’ immigration plans, including Donald Trump’s proposal to deport millions of immigrants estimated to be living illegally in the United States.
“What we need to do is to make sure that we’re securing the border in the first place, what we need to do is secure that people come over here with visas, don’t overstay the visas,” Christie told Kelly. “We have laws in place now to handle the overall majority of the stuff. What people are really angry about is that the government doesn’t do their job.”
Watch Kelly’s interview with Christie:
