And on the libertarian side of things, as a former prosecutor who was appointed home by President George W Bush on September 10th, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that's going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought.

President Obama has done nothing to change the policies of the Bush administration and the war on terrorism. And I mean practically nothing. And you know why? Because they work. Because they work. And I think we have as country have to decide is, do we have amnesia?

Because I don't. And I remember what we felt like on September 12th, 2001, and there been some mistakes made over the course a time? Of course, because it's human beings and their judgment calls and they're have been some mistakes made, but I want to say that I think both the way President Bush conducted himself and the way President Obama has conducted himself, in the main, on those type decisions hasn't been different because they were right, and because we haven't had another one of those attacks the cost thousands and thousands of lives. And as the governor now of a state that lost the second most people on 9/11, behind the state in New York, and still seeing those families, John, I love all these esoteric debates that people are getting into...

[Interviewer]
Senator Rand Paul, for example?

[Christie]
Listen, you can name any number people have engaged it, and he's one of them. I mean, these esoteric intellectual debates...I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation. And they won't, because that's a much tougher conversation to have.

So as a country and whoever's the leader of this country...

[Interviewer]
Is it a response to Obama being in the White House, do you think? This drift toward libertarianism?

[Christie]
No, I don't think so, but I think he started to cause it. I don't think it's a reaction to him, but he had a lot of rhetoric in 2008: he was gonna close Guantanamo, he was gonna stop this, he was gonna stop that, and I remember, I used to say to Mary Pat all the time, as someone who had top secret clearance, I said, "Man, when he sits in that chair and he starts to hear those briefings, his tune's gonna change fast, and it has. And so for those of us who were on the front line of that in the years after that: the US Attorneys, the FBI, the CIA, the people who are on the front line of trying to keep this country safe.

I just say, it's not a debate not worth having, but I think we need to be very cautious about how joyful we are over the idea that somehow we're gonna shift this baby way back, because the next attack becomes the kills thousands Americans as a result, people will be looking back on the people having this intellectual debate.