GOFFSTOWN, NH — Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie predicts that in a 2024 Republican presidential nomination race on the verge of becoming flammable, “it won’t end well” for former President Donald Trump.
And Christie, a former two-term Republican governor and 2016 presidential nominee who is seriously considering running for the White House again, argued that he has the debates to potentially bring down Trump if he faces the former president, four months into his third white House run, remains the clear front-runner in early national polls for GOP nominations.
Christie made his remarks as he headlined Monday night at a nearly two-hour town hall in New Hampshire, the state that holds the first primary and second overall game on the GOP nomination calendar.
“You better have someone on that podium who can do to him what I did to Marco,” Christie said at a town hall of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anslem College, which has been a must for presidential candidates for more than two decades. . and candidates from both parties.
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Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate considering another White House run, headlines a New Hampshire town hall at Saint Anselm College, on March 27, 2023, in Goffstown, NH (Fox news)
Christie was referring to his heated altercation with Florida Senator Marco Rubio during a nationally televised debate in New Hampshire days prior to the 2016 Republican presidential primary — a confrontation that pundits ruled as a knockout blow to Christie.
“Because that’s the only thing that’s going to beat Donald Trump. And that means you have to have the skill to do it and that means you have to be fearless, because he’s going to come back to you and go straight for you,” Christie emphasized at the time . . “So you have to think about who has the skill to do that and who has the guts to do it. Because it’s not going to end nicely either way. Its ending isn’t going to be a calm and quiet conclusion.”
Christie, who is considered one of the best communicators in the GOP and was known during his tenure for the kind of in-your-face politics that Trump also controls, was asked by Fox News after town hall if he thought any of the other actual or potential contenders in the emerging Republican presidential field also had the debating skills to effectively tackle Trump.
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“I don’t know the answer to that question, but what I would say is that no one has to wonder if I know,” the former governor stressed.
Christie put all his chips in his campaign for president in New Hampshire seven years ago. However, his campaign crashed and burned down after a disappointing and distant sixth-place finish in New Hampshire, well behind Trump, who crushed the competition in the primaries and pushed him to the nomination and eventually the White House.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate considering another White House run, headlines a New Hampshire town hall at Saint Anselm College, on March 27, 2023, in Goffstown, NH (Fox news)
Christie became the first of the other GOP 2016 contenders to support Trump and was for many years a top outside adviser to the then-President and chair of Trump’s high-profile committee on opioids. However, the two fell out after Trump’s failed attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss to President Biden. Over the past two years, Christie has become one of the most outspoken Trump critics in the GOP.
“I don’t want to hear anyone in this room say ‘ah, you know you’re saying this because you’re a never-Trump,'” Christie told the audience. “I was first on the bus and worked for him all election night 2020.”
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But Christie added to applause: “I got off the train when he stood in the west wing of the White House behind the seal of the president and told us that the election had been stolen when he didn’t have one fact to back it up. I I’m sorry. That’s when I get out. Because the truth matters.”
Trump emphasized during a speech to supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) early this month that “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And to those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” He repeated the line Saturday night in Waco, Texas, as the former president held his first campaign rally of the year.
Former President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Waco, Texas on March 25, 2023 (AP)
‘Guess everyone. No thanks,’ Christie said to a thunderous round of applause from the crowd. “The only person he cares about is him. And if we haven’t learned that from Election Day 2020 to today, then we’re not paying attention.”
Christie reiterated that “we’re the party of mine right now. It’s about him and nothing else. You can’t win like the party of mine … you have to win like the party of us.”
And in an effort to outnumber some of the other actual or potential candidates in the 2024 GOP nomination field, Christie targeted what he called “Trump lite” candidates. “That’s going to lose as surely as he lost in ’20, as we lost the House in ’18, as we lost the Senate in ’21, because we underperformed in ’22,” he argued.
Christie also jumped into the growing debate in the GOP over the war in Ukraine. While many in the GOP’s traditional aggressive wing firmly support Ukraine and criticize President Biden’s administration for not doing enough to help Kiev, they face an increasingly vocal wing of anti-war voices from the MAGA wing of the GOP. side.
Christie highlighted a recent comment by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that Russia’s war on Ukraine was a “territorial dispute.” The comment has sparked a storm of backlash from many in the GOP in recent weeks, though DeSantis later insisted that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was a “war criminal.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at a campaign event on Friday, March 10, 2023 in Davenport, Iowa. (AP Photo/Ron Johnson)
“I heard Governor DeSantis a week or two ago call what is happening to Ukraine in Russia a territorial dispute,” Christie said. “If you drive tanks and artillery into a free country in an attempt to take their land and their lives by force, that’s authoritarian aggression. That’s not a territorial dispute.”
DeSantis, who remains on the 2024 sidelines as of now, but is widely expected to enter the race and seen as Trump’s biggest rival. In an interview that ran on Fox Nation last week, the conservative governor whose popularity among Republicans across the country had soared over the past three years said to “stay tuned” when asked about a potential presidential run.
Christie also zoomed in on a comment by DeSantis from a “Fox and Friends” interview in February. The Florida governor criticized the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, saying, “They basically have a blank check policy with no clearly identified strategic goal and these things can escalate. And I don’t think it’s in our interest to engage in a proxy war with China, get involved in things like the border region or Crimea.”
The former New Jersey governor urged “someone to shake up Tallahassee. Didn’t he see what’s going on? Fentanyl comes across our southern border from China and kills 100,000 Americans a year. We are flying an intelligence gathering balloon about our country with blatant disregard for our country. I call that a proxy war.”
And Christie argued that “it’s naive to say we want to avoid a proxy war with China. We’re in a war.”
Fox News reached out to DeSanti’s political team for comment, but had not received comment at the time the story was published.
In an interview with Fox News Digital ahead of his trip to New Hampshire, Christie reiterated that he will make his decision for 2024 in the next 45 to 60 days. He explained that the three factors that go into his decision are “seeing a path to winning…believing that at that moment you have something to offer the country that it needs to hear”, and whether he will receive the support of his family would have.
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“If I answer yes to all three of these questions, then I run away. If I answer no to any of these questions, then I won’t,” he said.
And on Monday, he told the crowd at City Hall that when it comes to a timetable, “I think June is probably the last you can get. Because the first debate is in August and if you want to be a serious candidate, in this race you have to be on that podium in August and start making your case.”
Paul Steinhauser is a political reporter from New Hampshire.
