Chris Christie vows GOP ‘not going to be backed into a corner’ in Planned Parenthood fight

Chris Christie speaks during a town hall meeting in Keene, N.H.  (Photo: Jim Cole/AP)

MANCHESTER, N.H. — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was in the back seat of his state government SUV on Monday, being ferried between presidential campaign events, when he watched a video newly released by the campaign of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.

The two-minute video features Clinton speaking directly to the camera and charging that Republicans are conducting a “full-on assault on women’s health.” Clinton was responding to the push in Congress — supported by the GOP’s large field of presidential candidates — to halt federal funding for Planned Parenthood in the wake of an anti-abortion group’s release of undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing, in graphic detail, extracting organs from aborted fetuses and transferring them to research companies for a fee.

Clinton last week called the videos “disturbing” but continued to defend Planned Parenthood even as she signaled openness to a congressional investigation of the group’s practices. This week, she went on the offense against Republicans who want to defund the organization.

Christie watched Clinton’s video on the phone of his adviser Maria Comella. When he was done, he handed the phone back to her and said, “We need to do a video responding to this.”

Christie filmed a two-minute video that night, responding to Clinton, and his campaign released it Tuesday morning.

“The real issue here that Secretary Clinton won’t address is the conduct of Planned Parenthood,” Christie said, speaking to the camera. “Do you think that Planned Parenthood should be able to use federal funding to kill children in the womb in a specific way so that they can maximize the value of body parts that they then sell on the open market for profit?”

The sale of fetal tissue is banned by law, and Planned Parenthood says the videos do not show efforts to illegally sell tissue, but rather the price of storing and transporting such tissue, which women who have abortions have the option to voluntarily donate to medical research.

When I sat down to talk with Christie in a back room at Blake’s Restaurant and Creamery, he was worked up over the issue.

“To be really clear, that wasn’t a staff decision,” Christie told me about the decision to film the video response. “I mean, I had no plan on doing that. I saw that video yesterday. I’m just like, ‘I’m responding to this.’”

Clinton, in her video, did not mention Christie, even though he cut state funding for a number of health clinics in 2010 — including Planned Parenthood facilities — and has since vetoed attempts to restore funding for some of these clinics several times. Clinton did criticize three other Republican governors running for president for cutting funding to Planned Parenthood in their states: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

But Christie was incensed, he told me, that Clinton was “not answering the question.”

“It’s typical of her,” he said. “The question is about, you know, crushing the skulls of children in the womb to make their body parts more valuable, and she’s talking about ‘Republicans are trying to deny women health care.’ No we’re not. I’m spending hundreds of millions of dollars on women’s and men’s health care in New Jersey, through federally qualified health clinics, every year.”

He went on.

“That video is a pure pander job to the Planned Parenthood crowd. OK, you want to pander, that’s fine, but then I’m going to look you in the eye and say, ‘Answer the question. Do you agree with what they’re talking about on the videos?’ That’s the core issue,” Christie said.

Planned Parenthood says abortion makes up only 3 percent of its services. Its most recent annual report stated that the group’s affiliates conducted 327,653 abortions from 2012 to 2013. By law any federal monies received by Planned Parenthood already cannot be used for abortions; the group received $528 million in federal and state government funding in 2014. A majority of Americans in polls say they do not support federal funds being used for abortion; such funding has been banned, with rare exceptions, under the Hyde amendment since 1976.

Christie’s aggressiveness on the issue stands out. Congressional leaders have sent mixed signals about their willingness to pursue the issue, fearful that Democrats will use it to revive the charge that Republicans are conducting a “war on women.” Although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held a vote Tuesday evening on defunding Planned Parenthood — it failed 53 to 46 — he at first resisted the move. Other presidential candidates have spoken on the issue, but not as forcefully as Christie. Businessman Donald Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday, under questioning, that he thought congressional Republicans should be prepared to shut down the government to force the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

But so far, Christie is the only national Republican figure who seems to be itching to have a political fight over the issue. Christie said that Republicans need to hit back when Clinton and Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, R-Mass., accuse them of opposing women’s health in general.

“We will only get backed into a corner if we allow ourselves to be, and that was my attempt this morning to say  ‘We’re not going to be backed into a corner. I’m not going to let you change the subject,’” Christie told me. “Stop trying to ch— believe me, if I had her position, I’d try to change the subject. It’s up to us as the opposition to say, ‘No, no, no, no. Answer the question.’”

The GOP needs “a more direct and blunt voice” on the issue, he said.

Christie is widely perceived as a moderate or even liberal Republican by the Republican grass roots, but his response to Clinton was already winning praise from conservative media on Tuesday. “Even if you’re not a fan of Chris Christie, you’ll LOVE his question for Hillary on Planned Parenthood,” read a headline on Twitchy.com, a conservative news aggregation site.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky at a news conference on Capitol Hill to discuss Planned Parenthood. With him are, from left, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. (Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Christie sat across from me after finishing a two-hour question-and-answer session with voters inside Blake’s, a diner across the Merrimack River from Manchester’s downtown. Christie held a microphone and took questions from about 75 locals sitting in booths, getting up from his stool and walking up and down the aisles.

It was an impressive performance by the 52-year old governor that demonstrates why, despite his still-low poll numbers, there could be a path in this state for Christie — because of his charisma and political talents. At least twice, he told stories that had numerous people in or near tears. He told the story of a good friend who died of a drug overdose at 52, leaving a wife and children behind, to emphasize his connection to the issue, which has been a focus of his in New Jersey.

After he finished, the woman who had asked him the question called out, “Thank you!”

Christie almost always tells the story of his mother on her deathbed, telling him to go to work rather than sit with her. But he drew it out in its telling on Tuesday, and conveyed a sense of emotion that clearly moved his listeners.

Afterward, he told me that he hadn’t been sure how voters in New Hampshire would receive him when he first entered the race at the end of June.

“If you’re going to be honest, you’re coming up here for the first time as a candidate for president of the United States, you don’t know how you’re going to be received. And I’ve had a fairly tumultuous last 18 months, so you know, that’s always weighing in the back of your mind. And I’m not a person that a lot of people don’t have opinions on. So all that stuff weighs into it,” Christie told me. “I think I’m fairly self aware. So you come up here and say, ‘OK, now I’m offering myself for president, how are they going to react?’”

“So I don’t know whether I lacked confidence, but I certainly was curious about how this was going to go,” he said.

“I’m more confident than when I walked in at the beginning, because I really feel like people are responding to what I’m saying. And I think you saw today, people were really into it, they react, they connect,” Christie said. “And so, I’m more confident today than I was on June 30th, when I came up here for the first time as an official candidate.”

The current polls, Christie said, “are kind of a joke at this point.”

“It’s not just because I’m at 4 or 5 percent or whatever I’m at,” he said. “It’s just that you look at them and you say to yourself, ‘People aren’t really focused right now,’ and that may be more about name identification or one thing they’ve read. It’s summer entertainment time.”

Christie also stands out for how he has talked about Trump: He has been mildly critical of Trump, but has not denounced him like Perry or Bush. And he has not defended him, as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has.

“We’ve always gotten along. Been friends for 13 years. I went to his wedding, the third one,” Christie said. “We’re friends. But you know, I just don’t think this is the right job for him.”