New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Wednesday that Secretary of State John Kerry needs to “get some sleep and shut up” in the wake of comments Mr. Kerry made about the impetus behind the recent attacks in Paris.
“He needs to get some sleep and shut up is what he needs,” Mr. Christie, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, said on Fox News.
Mr. Kerry said this week that as opposed to the most recent attacks last week, one could envision some sort of “rationale” for the attacks earlier this year at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo publication in Paris.
“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that,” Mr. Kerry said. “There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.”
Mr. Christie called the remarks “disgraceful.”
“For the secretary of state of the United States to stand up and say that there’s some rationale for what happened in January — these are the kind[s] of weak, mixed signals that this administration sends that helps to really make the American people think that there’s no one watching the store. And there isn’t,” Mr. Christie said.
“This is the same president who’s sitting around saying that somehow, it’s everyone else’s fault,” Mr. Christie continued. “He’s the guy who drew the red line in Syria and didn’t enforce it, didn’t set up a no-fly zone, or these refugees wouldn’t have to be leaving their own country.”
State Department spokesman John Kirby tried to clarify Mr. Kerry’s remarks, saying on Twitter Tuesday evening: “@JohnKerry didn’t justify Hebdo attacks, simply explained how terrorists tried to. As he said at time, it was a cowardly & despicable act.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.