Chris Christie: I'm in love with Adele
Sioux City Chris Christie made a musical confession at a town hall in Iowa on Sunday.
"Recently I have kind of like, kind of fallen in love with Adele," he said to a crowd of about 250 people at a bar here.
The New Jersey governor, who has always been a proud Bruce Springsteen fan, went on to explain how Adele's melodies have been his top pick during recent rides on the campaign trail in Iowa.
"As I was driving around Iowa, I have been known with members of my staff to be singing a little 'Hello,'" Christie said. "But I can guarantee this: You don't want to be in the car for that. You really don't want to be in the car for that. My staff is only in the car because I'm paying them to be there."
Last week, Christie invoked Adele's song "Hello" in a very different manner -- to jab his GOP primary opponent Marco Rubio in a series of tweets. This came after a PAC supporting Rubio released two attack ads questioning Christie's conservative credentials:
The light-hearted conversation in Sioux City on Sunday got the room laughing. But during this lengthy town hall, just a little more than two weeks away from the caucuses, people also got serious. They revealed they are nervous about GOP front runner Donald Trump, and they are looking for someone who can beat him.
"So in this election, how do you go about gaining ground on somebody who seems to be politically invulnerable?" one audience member asked Christie.
Christie explained that he does not think a candidate is politically invulnerable until the voting comes in. Then he asked the room if they were not going to show up and vote because Trump is already the winner. "No," yelled a bunch of folks. Christie took the opportunity to remind folks that Trump is flying in and out for one event here and there. Then, he warned them: "If you reward that, then Iowa is no different from any other state anymore."
Perhaps that was not enough to quell everyone in the room. Another Trump question came minutes later.
"My question is, how are you going to take care of that Donald when he tries to kick your butt?" asked another audience member.
Christie proceeded to tell the lengthy story of when he met Trump in 2003. He reassured the questioner: "If it does come down to me and Donald, I will be ok."
Christie also stressed that if he had to run against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the general election, he would be ready -- despite her sex.
"I will be as tough on Hillary Clinton as I need to be," he said. "I will prosecute the case against her based on the facts, not based on emotion. I won't raise my voice. I won't yell and scream. I'm not going to call her names. Not going to get into that because that's inappropriate for someone running for president to begin with, but it's even more inappropriate when you're running against a female candidate. I think that what I have to do is to lay out the facts to the American people."