Christie: Trump’s immigration comments won’t turn off supporters

.@ChrisChristie: @realDonaldTrump has been "completely consistent" on immigration https://t.co/a1efDwSOEu https://t.co/9e548hmfPk
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) August 28, 2016
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Sunday that he doesn’t think recent comments by Donald Trump, interpreted as a softening on immigration by some observers, will turn off the Republican presidential nominee’s supporters.
“No. I think what it’s going to do is put an even greater highlight on the fact that [Democratic nominee] Hillary Clinton has a 100-day amnesty plan, where everybody here, no matter whether you’ve been a criminal or not, no matter how you got here or not, is going to wind up becoming American citizens under Hillary Clinton’s plan,” Christie, the chairman of Trump’s transition team and a former Republican presidential candidate, said on ABC’s “This Week.”
{mosads}“I think when voters look at that, they’re going to say that’s not what we want to have happen in this country.”
Christie described the presidential race as a “binary choice.”
“It’s going to be the approach that Donald Trump takes or the approach that Hillary Clinton takes, not some other approach. And the Clinton approach is just a completely unacceptable one. It’s [an] unlawful one, and it’s one that voters who have supported Donald Trump from the primary going forward are not going to turn around and support, and they’re certainly going to want to make sure they do everything they can to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House. And that’ll mean voting for Donald Trump on Nov. 8.”
After meeting with Hispanic leaders in mid-August in New York, Trump indicated on Fox News that he may consider a softening of his immigration policies. He later walked back those comments in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN.
Christie would not directly say whether Trump would try to deport all 11 million undocumented workers currently in the country or just those he refers to as the “bad ones.”
“Listen, I think that he’s been very clear on this. We’re not going to have amnesty. What we’re going to do is to get those who are breaking the law out of the country as quickly as possible to make sure then that you deal with people in a humane way. I think that’s what he’s been saying. He’s been saying that, I think, for as long as I’ve been listening to him of late, and that’s what he’s going to do,” he said.
“I think what you expect of every candidate, and ultimately of a president, is to listen to the facts and to deal with things in a way that’s smart and direct. I’m confident that’s exactly what President Trump will do.”
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