New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sharply criticized President Obama’s decision to normalize relations with Cuba, saying he did not get enough out of the deal. In a one-two punch, Christie also charged the President with not being assertive in the wake of the Sony Pictures hacking incident.
Following up on a letter that he sent to the White House over the weekend, Christie said it was incomprehensible that Obama went ahead with the change in diplomatic relations with Cuba given that leaders within that country have granted asylum to Joanne Chesimard, who escaped from prison after she was convicted of slaying a New Jersey state trooper in the 1970s.
“These thugs in Cuba have given her political asylum for 30 years,” Christie said.
“It’s unacceptable to have a reopening of diplomatic relations with Cuba, and unacceptable to even consider taking them off the terrorist watch list if they are harboring a convicted cop killer,” he told an interviewer Monday night. “She murdered, in cold blood, a New Jersey state trooper on the side of the road who was just doing his job.”
Chesimard, a member of the Black Liberation Army who is now known as Assata Shakur, remains one of the top ten on the FBI’s most-wanted list. “Yet there’s been no conversation that anyone is aware of regarding sending her back to complete her sentence,” the governor said.
Calling Obama’s Cuba announcement an “awful deal,” Christie faulted the President both for failing to work out an extradition agreement on Chesimard and for not insisting on greater political reforms in exchange for the change in status.
“What did the United States get? And more importantly what did those people who are persecuted and whose human rights are violated in Cuba get in return for America now opening up its economic and travel doors, and (granting) full diplomatic relations with the power and majesty that that has to have an American embassy in your country,” Christie said during the hour-long interview Monday night with New Jersey anchor Steve Adubato on the PBS television station NJTV.
The New Jersey governor declined, however, to weigh in on the handling by New York City leaders of this weekend’s shooting of two New York City police officers. When pressed, he said that while many were trying to score “political points” on the issue, he believed it was a time to allow the families of the officers to grieve.
Before analyzing the culture surrounding the shootings, he urged all Americans “to take a deep breath and to think about the loss that’s been suffered by these two families,” and to pray for them.
“There’s plenty of time for us to discuss it, but I’m not going to be someone who is going to participate in this at the moment,” he said.
Turning to the alleged hacking of Sony by North Korea, Christie said that he agreed with President Obama’s assertion that Sony made a mistake by pulling the movie “The Interview” after a cyberattack.
But Christie took issue with Obama’s comment during a year-end press conference that he wished Sony had called him before making the decision to pull the movie because theaters were canceling showings.
“He certainly was briefed about the attack,” Christie said of the president. “It seems to me that it’s the obligation of the President of the United States to call them.”
“Sony made a mistake by backing off, and I think, quite frankly the President made a mistake by not being assertive, and getting everybody into the White House—from Sony, and the movie theater companies that Sony was complaining about, and the intelligence community—and say ‘O.K., what’s the nature of the threat and what can we do to stop it. Is there a safe way to show this movie?'”
“That’s what a leader does,” Christie said.