GOP presidential hopeful and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says the government is to blame for the slow and stagnant economy.

During an interview with the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo he said: “The private sector hasn’t seen the kind of growth they thought they would see coming out of a recession -- and they see more and more government requirements, Dodd-Frank, Obamacare etc. and 81,000 pages of new federal regulation just in 2014 -- the most in any year. So they see all that, they are not growing and expanding.”

Christie criticized the Federal Reserve for keeping interest rates at zero.

“The Fed, who has kept the interest rates at zero now have nothing in the toolbox in case we do go into recession. Where are we going to go from here? They should have been raising rates appropriately before... We could face a real big problem and soon,” he said.

He argued the Fed should be audited  

“You want the Federal Reserve to be independent and you want them to make decisions not based upon politics but upon sound monetary policy,” he said.

When asked what change he would like to see in the debates following the CNBC controversy he said: “I don’t really care. Put the podiums up there. You ask questions. I’ll be fine with it.”

FOX Business Network and the Wall Street Journal will present two Republican presidential primary debates in conjunction with the Republican National Committee (RNC) on November 10, 2015. The debates will focus on the economy and be presented live from the Milwaukee Theatre in Milwaukee, WI, on FBN and FOXBusiness.com. The primetime debate will start at 9PM ET and the undercard debate at 6PM ET.