Global Courant
Republican presidential nominee and former Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie arrives to speak at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton on June 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Drew Anger | Getty Images
Former New Jersey governor and Republican presidential nominee Chris Christie launched his latest blitz against Donald Trump on “Fox News Sunday.”
He claimed the former president lied about the size of his rally crowd and failed to keep his policy promises.
“The people in the Republican Party, and quite broadly across America, are tired of having political candidates who are snake oil salesmen who just don’t tell them the truth, who tell them what they think they want to hear right now.” Christie told Fox News.
Christie found the estimated size of Trump’s rally crowd “absurd.”
“Tens of thousands don’t show up anymore. That’s another one of the big lies,” he added. “You just have to look at the pictures.”
Christie has become one of Trump’s most outspoken critics, even as the former president, who is currently embroiled in several criminal investigations, has a significant lead in the polls of the GOP’s crowded candidate pool.
Trump and Christie also disagree on Social Security reform.
Trump has refused to scrap the program altogether. In the Sunday interview, Christie was even more firm in his stance on means testing for Social Security, which would exclude people with higher incomes from receiving those benefits. He also stood by his proposal to raise the retirement age.
“Do the extremely wealthy have to collect Social Security? Do we really need Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk to collect Social Security?” he said.
Christie, a former US attorney, also criticized the five-year investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes, saying it is “a lie or incompetent.”
“It can’t be that it would take five years to get to a two-way tax plea and then dismiss the gun allegations” against President Joe Biden’s son, he said.
Christie launched his much-anticipated bid on June 6 and is trailing Trump’s number by about 2.5%, though he has gained some steam against other candidates, according to aggregated polls from RealClear Politics. The former governor has also touted major donors supporting his campaign.
To secure a spot in the Republican primary that begins in August, GOP candidates must receive 40,000 donations and poll more than 1% in either three national polls, or two national polls and one state poll.
(TagsToTranslate)Breaking News: Business
