Former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie slammed President Joe Biden for making a joke after a shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday. He called the notion that Biden “misunderstood the moment” an “understatement.”
Christie, who railed against the president for “playing politics” with the shooting, said Biden should have watched the scenes from the shooting before speaking at the Small Business Administration’s Women’s Business Summit on Monday, where he joked about his fondness for ice cream.
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“To say that he misunderstood the moment would be an understatement,” Christie told Fox News.
“The president is watching — you would hope — before he comes down there the awful scenes from the shooting and the reactions of family members and of friends of people in that school. To be coming down and joking about being Jill Biden’s husband and looking for chocolate chip ice cream is hardly the way to start it.”
“There is no way to start talking about this except to say that for all of us who are parents, what we dread to see every day are news about the health and life of our children,” he continued. “So there is no place to joke in that circumstance at all and especially not from the president of the United States.”
Biden opened his remarks at the women’s summit with a joke about Jeni’s chocolate chip ice cream, which he’s known for enjoying. The jest came during his only public speaking event scheduled for the day.
“My name is Joe Biden. I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband,” Biden said. “And I eat Jeni’s ice cream — chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream. By the way, I have a whole refrigerator full upstairs. You think I’m kidding? I’m not.”
The president then addressed the shooting; it occurred at a Christian school and resulted in the deaths of three children and three adults. The shooter has been identified as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a biological man who identified as a woman. Biden called the shooting “sick” and claimed it was a family’s “worst nightmare.” He then called for Congress to ban assault-style weapons.
Christie jumped on Biden’s call for an assault-style weapons ban, accusing the president of playing politics with the attack.
“The second worst thing you can do after making a joke on a day like today is play politics with it,” Christie said. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the president did. He went back to the old playbook.”
Christie said a lack of laws regarding gun violence is not the problem. He said the country needed law enforcement to focus on school safety and continue addressing the mental health problems behind many mass shootings.
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The victims in the shooting have been identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9. The adult victims are Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61.
Koonce had been the head of Covenant School since July 2016 and had worked in the Nashville area for over a decade. Hill was a custodian, and Peak was a substitute teacher, according to NBC News.
