President Barack Obama showed why the world perceives him as being weak with his comments on climate change during his appearance on CBS' "60 Minutes" show Sunday night, GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie said Monday.
"The president sees hundreds of thousands of people being murdered in Syria by their own leader, millions more literally running for their lives to other parts of the world, and he talks about climate change," the New Jersey governor told
Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Martha MacCallum. "This is why this president, amongst other reasons, is such a failure, and seen so weak on the world stage."
Christie also told MacCallum that Obama "split the baby" on the issue training Syrians to go after ISIS, when he told CBS correspondent Steve Kroft that he had been skeptical about the issue from the beginning.
"He is not behind anything, anything that takes action," said Christie, and Obama "split the baby" when it comes to the training program.
"That is not leadership for America around the world," Christie said. "You need to be bold and resolute whatever you're going to do."
But Russian President Vladimir Putin is not "splitting the baby in half," said Christie, but instead is going all-in for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Putin established an alliance with Iran and is putting a foothold in the Middle East, Christie said, which is something he hasn't had for 40 years.
"We kicked the old Soviet Union and Russia out of the Middle East for 40 years," said Christie. "This president invited him back in to negotiate a deal with Assad on chemical weapons that Assad didn't stand up to, and now Putin is deciding to use military force there. He will establish himself as military leader in the Middle East."
He told MacCallum that a no-fly zone should be set up in Syria, and if Putin sends flights over "you take him down."
"I'm not prepared to allow Russia to try to bring communist domination back to the world, he said. "We spent untold treasure and American blood to eliminate the Soviet Union. We should not let it come back."
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