Chris Christie Warns of ‘Drone Vigilantes’ as He Melts Down Over New Jersey Sightings

Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, has slammed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for playing down the threat of drones buzzing around the state—and warned that “drone vigilantes” may soon start taking matters into their own hands.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week on Sunday after the show interviewed Mayorkas, Christie said he had seen several drones himself.

In response to a reference made by ABC host George Stephanopoulos to Mayrokas’ statement that the drones did not present any “unusual activity” or immediate threat, Christie said: “To say this is not unusual activity, it’s just wrong!”

“I have lived in New Jersey my whole life. This is the first time that I’ve noticed drones over my house. And I was in a restaurant in Monmouth County on Friday night, had people at the bar coming up to me and saying, Governor Murphy won’t tell me anything. The president won’t tell me anything. Do you know? Like, well, I don’t know,” he also said.

Mayorkas explained that he wanted his “authority” to be expanded in order to deal with the drones mystifying local residents and other onlookers in New Jersey.

In an earlier interview with Stephanopoulos, Mayorkas said he was not able to order the drones to be taken down by US state agencies.

Christie, once a candidate to be the Republicans’ presidential nominee, blamed the Biden administration for failing to be truthful with the American population.

“If you don’t fill that vacuum, all the conspiracy theories get filled in there,” he said. “You’ve got people like Congressman Jeff Van drew saying there’s an Iranian mothership off the coast of New Jersey. Absolutely not true, and provably now not true, and he’s had to back off that.”

“You can’t have conspiracy theorists filling the space, but the Biden administration and state authorities have to be more vocal and let people know exactly what they’re doing,” he added.

He also explained how sightings of drones were likely to affect locals who may have heard about drones being used in more dangerous contexts.

“It’s a newish technology to most people, and they’re worried about it and concerned. And to the extent they’re following things around the world, they hear about drones being deployed in Ukraine all the time as weapons, and us deploying drones as weapons at times. So you can see why people are concerned.”

Christie called on the government to end the matter once and for all by attacking the drones.

“I’d want our state police to be able to have the authority to bring those drones down and find out why they’re doing what they’re doing”

“What we’re going to find, George, is you’re going to have individuals acting as drone vigilantes, and they’re going to start taking them down. That’s not what we want, because they’re now an important part of commerce, and law enforcement uses them frequently for surveillance and other things we need to be able to operate a safe way, and we’re not doing that.”

His appearance on ABC came just a day after president-elect Donald Trump trolled Christie with an AI-generated meme of drones appearing to deliver McDonalds to Christie.

The pair once enjoyed a friendly relationship but it soured after Trump claimed to win the 2020 election.