GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE RECOUNTS TWO PERSONAL STORIES OF TRAGEDY IN HIS LIFE

Christie uses the story of a close friend’s death to emphasize the need for getting drug and addiction treatment to those who most need it, without passing judgment. He also asserts that taking a pro-life position must mean supporting life in all phases, not just in the womb. And discusses his mothers fight with lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking.

 

Machine Transcript, expect errors.

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my mother was a smoker she smoked the whole life she was addicted to nicotine

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she started when she was 16 years old which was 1948 but by the time 9064 came

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the Surgeon General's report came out and she was in her mid-thirty's she knew

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that smoking was bad for you and I tell you I watched as a kid growing up she

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tried everything she could to quit she had gum patches hypnosis she tried

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everything she couldn't quit now when she turns 71 little after that she was

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diagnosed with lung cancer

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no one came to me and said don't treat her as she got what she deserved we know

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the lung cancer is caused by the smoking we know it was but no one keeps

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resetting listen your mother was done she started smoking when she was 16 then

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after we told her was bad for she kept doing it so we're not gonna give her

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chemotherapy we're not going to give a radiation that stuff you know why she's

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getting what she deserves no one said that no one said that about someone had

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cancer yet somehow if it's heroin or cocaine or alcohol we say they decided

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they got what they deserved i'm pro-life and I think that if you're pro-life that

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means you gotta be pro-life or the whole life not just for the nine months

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through the woman it's easy it's easy to be pro-life for the nine months during

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the war mammoth anything to disappoint us yet the perfect in there but when

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they get out that's when it gets tough the 16 year old teenage girl on the

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floor of the county lockup addicted to heroin a pro-life for her to her life is

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just as much a precious gift from God as the one in the womb and we need to start

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thinking that way as a party in as a people and the president needs to say

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those things

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the second example

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I'm recovering lawyer thank you so I went to law school and many of you went

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to law school has anybody here is a lawyer to you can admit privately if you

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want later but the people that your closest to from moscow this people who

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are in your first year study group first year when you're nervous as heck you

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don't know you don't know what is up in what's down are you make your not make

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it

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you have the small group of people that everybody puts together there were eight

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of us in my group and we studied together and you get to see everybody at

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their absolute worst these are your best friends and law school one of the guys

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it was in my study group

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his profile you know he came we went to law school at Seton Hall University in

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New Jersey he came from an Ivy League school to see he's the smartest of all

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of us he became editor of The Wall review he was the first one of us who

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got a job at a school got a big prominent law firm in our state is

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making more money than the rest of us he married an incredibly beautiful woman

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who's a doctor they have three gorgeous daughters one cuter and happier and more

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talented than the next use the first one among us to become a partner at a law

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firm he bought a house he a great car and worse yet she was really good

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looking and in perfect shape but I used to run ten twelve miles a week every

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week so the guy everything right he was running one day in his normal routine

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hurt his back running shoes in his early forties and was not giving in to age and

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he was running his normal time he hurt his back as he went to the doctor is

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having trouble working really hurt and so he said this is going to be some

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treatment whatever but in the meantime just help get you through we're gonna

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give you purchase it helps numb the pain

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about a year later I got a call from his wife and she said he's addicted to

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painkillers and he won't listen and I kicked him out of the house and he's

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living at his parents house and you guys need to go to have an intervention

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within those friends from law school

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need to go and get him to go to rehab so we all went over there and intervention

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with him and it started a ten year odyssey of him being in and out of rehab

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during that period of time she divorced him to see his girls

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licensed to practice law he lost his driver's license he lost his home he

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bought himself a condo and she kicked him out he lost that he lost all the

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money spent all the money that he had saves in the spencer most of his

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retirement when a year and a half ago on a Sunday morning meri Patni got the call

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that we've been driving forever that they found him dead in a motel room with

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an empty bottle of percocet in the quarter vodka 52 years old by every

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measure that we define success in this country this guy had a great looking guy

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well-educated great career plenty of money

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beautiful loving wife beautiful children greathouse had everything he's a drug

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out they couldn't get help and he's dead and when i SAT there as the governor of

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new jersey at his funeral and looked across the pew at his three daughters

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sobbing as their dad is gone there but for the grace of God go I it can happen

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to anyone and so we need to start treating people in this country not

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jailing them we need to give them the tools they need to recover because every

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life is precious every life is an individual gift from God and we have to

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stop judging and start giving them the tools they need to get better

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