Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is sounding off on his top rivals for the 2024 GOP nomination, saying former President Donald Trump’s drama has “led to losing” for Republicans and slamming Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for dodging the issue of Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Christie, speaking to “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, faulted Mr. Trump for disappointing results in the past three election cycles and said Mr. Trump won’t help Republicans win over independent women by fixating on his 2020 loss.
“He’s a backward-looking candidate and he’s angry,” Mr. Christie said. “He feels like he wasn’t treated fairly. But he hasn’t treated us fairly.”
Mr. Christie said Mr. Trump should have returned government documents from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives to spare the country from the tension around his federal indictment.
“If he returned them, we wouldn’t have this indictment, we wouldn’t have this problem. Now America is going to have to go through an indicted president, and that’s sad,” Mr. Christie said.
Mr. Christie, who served as New Jersey governor from 2010 to 2018, fell short in the 2016 presidential primary and endorsed Mr. Trump.
He’s fallen out with the ex-president since then and leaped into the 2024 race promising to serve as an attack dog who will criticize Mr. Trump head-on.
Mr. Trump leads the crowded field by wide margins, however, sometimes attracting over 50% of the vote and leading his second-place rival, Mr. DeSantis, by double digits.
Mr. DeSantis has been able to grab over 20% of the vote in many polls while the rest of the candidates, including Mr. Christie, sit in the single digits.
Mr. Christie is taking aim at Mr. DeSantis for giving an indirect answer to a high school student who this week in New Hampshire asked the governor if Mr. Trump impeded the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021.
“So I wasn’t anywhere near Washington that day. I have nothing to do with what happened that day. Obviously, I didn’t enjoy seeing what happened, but we’ve got to go forward on this stuff,” Mr. DeSantis said. “We cannot be looking backward and be mired in the past.”
Mr. Christie said it was an unacceptable answer, given the events of the day, in which pro-Trump citizens protested what they saw as a rigged 2020 election.
“He wasn’t anywhere near Washington. Did he have a TV? Was he alive that day? Did he see what was going on?” Mr. Christie said on CNN late Wednesday.
One of the protesters at the Capitol, Ashli Babbitt, was shot to death by a police officer.
Another officer, Brian Sicknick, died of strokes the day after fighting off demonstrators, D.C.’s chief medical examiner ruled.
“You don’t have an opinion about Jan. 6 except to say, ’I didn’t particularly enjoy what happened?’” Mr. Christie said of Mr. DeSantis. “People were killed. We had members of Congress who were running for their lives. We had people trying to hunt down the vice president of the United States, chanting, ’Hang Mike Pence.’”
Mr. Christie said he would have told the student that Mr. Trump was responsible for the events that day.
Mr. Trump has continued to say the 2020 election was rigged and that he should have been declared the winner. He is relishing his front-runner status despite a pair of indictments in New York and a federal court in Florida.
Recently, Mr. Trump said he might not bother debating the rest of the GOP field in Milwaukee in August, complaining that Fox News is biased against him but still wants him to participate.
Mr. Christie said if Mr. Trump is so proud of what he accomplished as president, he shouldn’t have any reluctance to debate.
“If you’re so perfect and strong about your record,” Mr. Christie told Fox News, “well, you shouldn’t have any problem getting up there and defending it.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.