GOP presidential hopeful Chris Christie promised on Sunday to tell Americans of the devastation he saw in Israel after becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to visit the country following the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Christie, who has made US leadership on the world stage a focal point of his campaign, insisted more people should see the impact of the violence for themselves, especially those who want to sit in the Oval Office.
“If you don’t understand the stakes after seeing this, then you’re lost,” he said, repeatedly assuring those impacted by the attacks throughout his trip that most Americans are still in favor of supporting Israel.
Christie said people play on “confusion and misinformation” around events like this, and that he would go back to the US and share “exactly” what he saw in foreign policy speech scheduled for Wednesday.
Christie also met with families of hostages being held in Gaza, telling them the safe release of their loved ones has to be “a priority that supersedes anything else because of the lives that are at risk here.”
Earlier in the day, he toured a kibbutz where he was shown a home riddled by bullet holes and told of stories of entire families dying and children hiding for hours amid the violence.
He said to be able to “walk into one of these homes and smell the death, still, a month later, is something the American people need to know and hear directly from someone who has seen it themselves.”
Recalling a screening of a documentary produced by the Israel Defense Forces, Christie told CNN’s Omar Jimenez later Sunday that he was most struck by the “joy” that Hamas militants took in executing the attacks.
Christie, who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv just months after launching his 2024 presidential bid, has distanced himself from…
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