Christie on Syria: Only Obama and Hillary Could ‘Mess up This Foreign Policy that Badly’

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Let's talk about Syria. Vladimir Putin going in aggressively this week, two or three days of air strikes. You heard Donald Trump right there. He sort of says, maybe it's OK, maybe to have Putin go in and do that, fight. You heard President Obama also this week. He believes that Putin's making a mistake and could fall into a quagmire. Are they right about that? If you were president, what would you do?”

CHRISTIE: “Well, Donald should be concerned that he's agreeing with Barack Obama, because just when you think it can't get worse, it does. And just when you think this foreign policy can't cost more to the American people, it does. We don't need to be friends with Vladimir Putin and we don't need to be worried about whether he's in a quagmire. After 40 years, we allowed Russia back into the Middle East. And now who are they partnered with? Iran.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “So how do you push them out?”

CHRISTIE: “Oh, listen, you should be - first, they should never be. But now that he's there, America's got to re-establish its presence in that area. We should be the ones leading the fight on ISIS. And by the way, we know Putin's not fighting ISIS. Putin's there to prop up Assad. After he told him –“

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Would you put in a no-fly zone?”

CHRISTIE: “Absolutely. And I'll tell you this, there's now 300,000 nearly dead in Syria because of Assad and now Putin is going in and teaming with the Iranians to prop up Assad. Only Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton could mess up this foreign policy that badly. And anybody who agrees with allowing the Russians into the Middle East is just painfully naive.”