GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie revealed to CNN during his surprise visit to Ukraine, he gifted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lyrics of "It’s My Life" that were handwritten by Bon Jovi because he believed it represented Americans supporting Ukraine in their war against Russia.
The inspiration for the gift came from a video that showed Ukrainians playing the song as they were filling sandbags.
"Jon wrote out the lyrics to the song ‘It’s My Life,’ which served as an inspiration for a lot of the citizens in Odesa as they were preparing for the invasion by the Russians," Christie explained. "He wrote it out in his own hand, got it framed, and I brought it to President Zelenskyy, presented it to him, and said that this is representative of many of the American people and what they feel about the cause that’s being fought for in Ukraine and who support Ukrainian people against Russian barbarism.
"And we got a good laugh over it about two guys from New Jersey trying to be supportive of what’s happening over in Ukraine for the Ukrainian people. And so I was happy to do that and to be able to show him that. There’s lots of folks over here, in fact, hundreds of millions of Americans, who believe that the Ukrainian cause is just," he added,
.@ChrisChristie: “[Bon Jovi] wrote [the lyrics to “It’s My Life”] out in his own hands, got it framed, & I brought it to Pres. Zelenskyy … & said that this is representative of the American people … In fact, hundreds of millions of Americans believe the Ukrainian cause is just” pic.twitter.com/EOipe88zh9
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 6, 2023
Christie is a long shot candidate who has centered his campaign around being heavily critical of former President Donald Trump. As of Wednesday, he has reached the 40,000 individual donor threshold to qualify for the upcoming GOP primary debate, but he still only has one out of the three qualifying polls requirement to show he has one percent support.
