Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie criticized Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas's dismissal of drone activity and said suggesting it wasn't unusual activity is ludicrous.
“Is this mass hysteria of some kind?” ABC News host George Stephanopoulos asked the former governor. The ABC News host also just spoke to Mayorkas, who said the public has no reason to be concerned about drones and that they have not seen any unusual activity.
Dozens of drones They have been spotted flying around New Jersey over the past few weeks, with government officials yet to determine where they came from or who is operating them.
“That's why, George,” Christie said. “Because of answers like the ones the secretary just gave. They don't answer the questions.”
Chris Christie joined ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday to respond to the drones spotted flying across New Jersey. (Screenshot/ABC)
“To say this is not unusual activity is completely wrong. I have lived in New Jersey all my life. This is the first time I have noticed drones over my house. I was at a restaurant in Monmouth County on Friday. At night,” Christie said. People at the bar came up to me and said, 'The governor won't tell me anything.'
Detailing his own experience, Christie said he stopped Drones fly over his house In New Jersey two days ago.
“The Biden administration and state authorities need to be more upfront and let people know exactly what they're doing. This interview this morning was a bit of a better step, but I think a lot of it came too late, and when people see this kind of new technology,” he added. “For most people, they are concerned about it and concerned about it.”
Stephanopoulos asked: “So, don’t you think this is the kind of thing that once people pay attention to, they actually see things they wouldn’t necessarily have paid attention to in the past?”
George Stephanopoulos speaks on ABC's “This Week.” (ABC/Paola Lobo via Getty Images)
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Christie said it might be “some of that,” but he said people, including himself, were seeing drones flying over their homes for the first time in their lives.
The former governor said that if he were still governor he wanted “our state police to be able to shoot down those drones and figure out why they're doing what they're doing, and of course, you'd have to coordinate with the FAA.”
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“What we're going to find, George, is that you're going to have individuals acting as drone guards, and they're going to start taking them down. That's not what they want, because they're now an important part of the trade,” he added. “Law enforcement is using them frequently for surveillance and other things, and we need to “To be able to operate in a safe manner, we don't.”
