Chris Christie repeatedly went on the offensive against former President Donald J. Trump during a prime time CNN town hall.
“He’s angry, and he’s vengeful, and he’s sad,” Christie said.
The former New Jersey governor spoke with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and a variety of Republican questioners during the June 12 event.
Other contenders for the slot include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), radio and TV host Larry Elder, and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, among others.
“Christie has the verbal skills and chutzpah that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lacks to attack Trump in ways that could do real damage,” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote to Twitter on June 1 before he formally announced but after details of the prospective bid leaked to journalists.
He has so far lived up to his promise as an unabashedly anti-Trump entrant to the 2024 race.
During his June 6 presidential announcement, Christie described Trump as a “mirror hog.”
Onstage with Cooper on June 12, Christie built on his assessment.
“It is a very tight, very detailed, evidence-laden indictment, and the content in there is awful,” he said, citing his experience as a former federal prosecutor as justification for his analysis. Christie later added that he does not think the Department of Justice has been weaponized against Trump, as is the viewpoint of many others.
He said there is “guaranteed to be a lot more” evidence produced at a later point.
Christie condemned Trump, not just for his alleged misdeeds but also for “putting our country through this.”
He said he doesn’t buy the argument that Trump retained documents for possible use in blackmail, arguing instead that the incident amounted to the former president’s “vanity run amok.”
“He cannot live with the fact that he lost to Joe Biden,” Christie said.
“He wants to continue to pretend he’s president,” he added, suggesting that the documents were part of that.
DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and other candidates have been more critical of the indictment.
“We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation. Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?” the governor of Florida asked on Twitter.
During his CNN town hall, Christie argued that many other Republican presidential hopefuls were “playing political games” rather than engaging with the indictment’s content.
“I was someone who thought Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted,” he added.
Christie also said he believed that accusations of Russian collusion by Trump were “complete baloney” and that former FBI director James Comey should have faced prosecution.
“We need to restore faith in our justice system,” the 2024 hopeful said, before adding that “none of that excuses you from talking about the conduct Donald Trump is engaged in.”
He also praised current FBI director Chris Wray.
From Opponent to Appointee and Back Again
The former leader of the Garden State dropped out of the 2016 presidential race soon after finishing in sixth place in the New Hampshire primary.Shortly after that, he endorsed then-candidate Trump.
“You have made fighting the opioid epidemic a national priority, Mr. President. And, the country is ready to follow your lead,” he said in that document.
At the June 12 town hall, the politician claimed that if elected president, he would end the War on Drugs to “focus on treatment” of men and women hooked on heroin, fentanyl, and other opioids.
“Let’s stop stigmatizing this,” he said, adding that he would continue supporting efforts to stop the flow of drugs across the southern border.
Christie has positioned himself as a strongly anti-Trump voice in the GOP, particularly after the events of Jan. 6, 2021. In early February of that year, he characterized it as “a riot that was incited by Donald Trump in an effort to intimidate Mike Pence and the Congress” over the controversial results of the 2020 presidential election.
Christie sounded less than Trump-like on foreign policy during the CNN broadcast.
Asked about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he said it was a “proxy war with China” necessitating ongoing U.S. materiel.
“America can only be great when we lead. We can’t be great when we’re small,” Christie said at a later point, citing Lincoln, Kennedy, and FDR among the leaders whose actions made the country “a bigger and greater America.”
On trade, though, Christie sounded more like the Donald.
“The Chinese have taken advantage of our good nature” on trade, he said in answer to a question about tariffs on goods made in China.
Christie said the tariffs would be “part of an overall negotiation to reset our relationship with China.”
He also avoided endorsing a national ban on abortion, saying that the “states should decide” and the federal government shouldn’t step in until there’s a broad consensus on the issue.
