MANHATTAN (CN) — Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie promised Republican voters at a town hall Monday that he would set himself apart from party rivals by being the only presidential candidate who will challenge Donald Trump directly to his face.
“I’m going to take him on directly because he’s the leader," Christie said of Trump during the 90-minute town hall televised live by CNN.
Trump has continued to dominate early polls in the crowded 2024 Republican primary field even as he is set to be arraigned Tuesday on a federal indictment. Christie, by contrast, has not managed to scrounge even a single percentage of supporters.
“I beg you to think about this: Don’t allow the showmanship to obscure the facts,” Christie urged his audience about Trump. “And the facts are he lost to Joe Biden, and he lost to Joe Biden, in my opinion, because he lost independent voters.”
In the week since announcing his candidacy, Christie has been among the more outspoken contenders when it comes to the current party frontrunner.
“This is vanity run amok, ego run amok,” Christie said of the former president whom he not only endorsed twice but also advised ahead of the tumultuous 2020 election.
“[He’s] completely self-centered, and completely self-consumed and doesn’t give a damn about the people of the United States, in my view,” Christie told Anderson Cooper, who hosted the event at CNN's studio in Manhattan.
A former federal prosecutor, Christie offered viewers his take on the federal case that charges Trump with mishandling classified documents after he lost the presidency.
“It is a very tight, very evidence-laden indictment. The conduct in there is awful,” Christie said, telling Cooper he agreed with former Attorney General William Barr's conclusion that Trump's federal indictment is "very damning.”
Christie called Trump’s obfuscation in response to requests to return the documents “indefensible,” and said that he wouldn’t be surprised to see his prosecution put on a “rocket docket” in the Southern District of Florida, going to trial before the 2024 election.
Christie chastised those who are fearful to call out Trump directly, comparing Republicans’ anemic treatment of Trump to the villain Voldemort in the Harry Potter books, whom characters refer to as "He Who Must Not Be Named" or "You Know Who.”
“It’s like, say his name, man,” Christie said. “How do you beat someone if you won’t talk about them? How do you beat someone if you won’t distinguish yourself from them?”
“The only thing he understands is force. The only thing he understands is coming right at him and making your case,” he added, continuing to pile on Trump. “He hasn’t won a damn thing since 2016. A three-time loser."
“Why will it be different this time?” Christie asked.
Christie, who is 60, morbidly invoked the advanced ages of Trump and the Democratic incumbent, noting they would be a combined 160 years old on Election Day.
“Nobody beats father time,” he said.
“They’re past their sell-by dates,” Christie said of the pair later in the town hall.
Pushed about his own myriad controversies, Christie attempted to distance himself from New Jersey's 2013 "Bridgegate" scandal, in which two of three lanes leading onto the George Washington Bridge were closed for a fictitious traffic study, snarling traffic for days in Fort Lee.
Asked by Republican voter Jason Ortiz about his involvement in the scandal that marred his second term in office, Christie responded: "I had absolutely nothing to do with it, no knowledge of it. I was appalled by it. And I had nothing to do with it."
Several former Christie aides claimed that the governor himself orchestrated the shutdown as political payback against Fort Lee's Democratic mayor, but Christie himself was never charged.
"I regret what happened, and I feel — I am accountable for it because it happened on my watch," he said. "But it'll never happen with me, I can guarantee that."
Christie, now 60 years old, has had previous presidential ambitions. In 2015, he began his first presidential bid but was soundly beaten in the primaries, dropping out in early 2016 after his sixth-place showing in the New Hampshire primary.
He quickly endorsed Trump and was reportedly offered the vice president job only to be snubbed for Mike Pence.
The Christie-Trump relationship soured after the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, with Christie calling the events of that day a “red line” for his support of Trump and criticizing many Republicans for minimizing the events of the day. “January 6 was a riot that was incited by Donald Trump in an effort to intimidate Mike Pence and the Congress,” he told a right-wing radio program last year. “He wanted the election to be overturned.”
Christie more recently told CNN’s Jake Tapper that his “breaking point” with Trump came on Election Night 2020, two months before the Capitol violence.
“Turns out I was wrong. I couldn’t make him a better candidate and I couldn’t make him a better president, and he disappointed me,” he told Tapper during an appearance on “The Lead” last week.
Going on to target Trump on other issues, Christie has called the former president a “coward” for refusing to back Ukraine against Russia and has said Trump has nothing but a “big mouth.”
Trump has also taken his own jabs, nicknaming the former governor “sloppy Chris Christie” and mocking his poll numbers.
Christie has also been lumped by Trump with Republican challengers he considers RINOs, or Republican in name only, a slang term for a GOP politician who does not strictly vote along party lines or is otherwise deemed insufficiently loyal to the party.
A spokesperson for Trump’s Make America Great Again fundraising committee called Christie “a dishonest career politician who will do or say anything to enrich and empower himself.”
Follow @jruss_jruss
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
Head of Vietnam’s parliament resigns amid corruption probe April 26, 2024 -
