Watch Chis Christie sack Jeb Bush in fantasy football debate

Oct. 28, 2015 9:21 PM PT

The most memorable moment for Jeb Bush Wednesday night was a tiff with Marco Rubio.

But another interesting exchange came on an issue that millions of Americans stress out over each Sunday: fantasy football.

"Well, first of all, I'm 7 and 0 in my fantasy league,” he said. “Gronkowski is still going strong. I have Ryan Tannehill, Marco, as my quarterback, he was 18 for 19 last week. So I'm doing great. But we're not gambling.”

When asked whether the federal government should render the billions doled out on fantasy sports as gambling, the former Florida governor tried to show his more personable side.

Bush said the issue is one that needs to be looked at in terms of regulation.

“ Effectively it is day trading without any regulation at all. And when you have insider information, which apparently has been the case, where people use that information and use big data to try to take advantage of it, there has to be some regulation,” he said.

Bush added that he had “no clue whether the federal government is the proper place. My instinct is to say hell no to just about everything about the federal government.”

The Fantasy Trade Assn. estimates that 51 million people in the United States and Canada are playing fantasy football in 2015, bringing in several billion dollars.

But New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie threw Bush for a loss, and fast. Actually, you could say Christie sacked him.

“Are we really talking about getting government involved in fantasy football?“ Christie said. “We have -- wait a second, we have $19 trillion in debt. We have people out of work. We have ISIS and Al Qaeda attacking us. And we're talking about fantasy football? Can we stop? How about this? How about we get the government to do what they're supposed to be doing, secure our borders, protect our people, and support American values and American families. Enough on fantasy football. Let people play, who cares?"

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Kurtis Lee

Kurtis Lee is a former national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote news features, narratives and enterprise on an array of topics — race, criminal justice, immigration, income inequality, the 2nd Amendment. He won first place in the 2021 National Headliner Awards for his series of stories about the COVID-19 pandemic on the Navajo Nation. Lee has filed reports from the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and chronicled Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency. Prior to joining The Times in August 2014, Lee worked at the Denver Post where he covered state and national politics. He’s also reported from the scenes of destructive wildfires and mass shootings and was a member of the Post staff that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the Aurora theater shooting. He’s a graduate of Temple University.

Watch Chis Christie sack Jeb Bush in fantasy football debate

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