New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called Rick Santorum’s 2008 comments that, “Satan has his sights set on the United States of America” “relevant” to the presidential race, if not what the party should be focusing on.

Santorum made the comments in 2008 during a speech at Ave Maria University, and they have caused quite a stir after being posted as the headline on the Drudge Report Tuesday afternoon. The Daily Caller had previously posted the story on Saturday.

The candidate himself stood by his comments, but dismissed them as “not relevant to what’s being discussed in America today,” CBS reported.

In a Wednesday morning appearance on “Good Morning America,” Christie disagreed.

“I think anything you say as a presidential candidate is relevant. I mean it’s by definition relevant, you’re asking to be president of the United States. So I don’t think he’s right about that … I think people want to make an evaluation, a complete evaluation of anybody who asks to sit in the Oval Office,” Christie said.

“Now do I think it’s the things that we should be, as a party, talking about and emphasizing at the moment? No,” Christie added.

The discussion of issues of religious freedom, he said, was an “interesting” one to have in the larger context of Obamacare, but at the moment, “what people want to hear about is what are you going to do for the economy, how are you going to create jobs.”

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