Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie argued that former President Donald Trump’s frontrunner status in the 2024 GOP primary race is “fatally flawed.”
During an interview on MSNBC, Christie was asked by anchor Stephanie Rule about why Trump is still the lead despite his legal troubles.
“Look, I think that he’s the nominee twice in the last eight years, and there’s a lot of folks who still think that sticking with Donald Trump is the way the best way to beat Joe Biden,” the former New Jersey governor responded. “I think that’s fatally flawed on a couple of fronts.”
“First, I don’t think Donald Trump is fit to be president of the United States. And that’s one of the reasons I’m running. Secondly, I think if he were the nominee, he wouldn’t beat Joe Biden,” he continued. “And third, I do think that our party needs to restore a sense of decency to the Oval Office, and that would not happen with Donald Trump as president.”
Christie, who is running in the GOP presidential race with only 3 percent support, has mostly used his campaign to attack Trump, referring to the former president as “Donald Duck” during the second debate.
“Don’t worry, @realDonaldTrump. Debate stage or coming out of a building, you’ll have to face me one way or another,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
Christie previously ran for the Republican nomination in 2016, but after a lackluster performance in New Hampshire, he withdrew from the campaign very early. He was also one of the first ex-candidates to support Trump after withdrawing from the race.
Despite the New Jersey Republican’s smear campaign, Trump is still leading in several polls across the country. According to The Economist and YouGov’s recent survey, 51 percent are in favor of the 45th president, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis comes in second with 14 percent.
Around 1,500 U.S. adult citizens between August 26 and 29 were asked who they would vote for if “the Republican presidential primary in your state were held today.”
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy comes in a distant third with five percent. Haley comes in fourth with four percent, followed by former Vice President Mike Pence with three percent, Christie with two percent, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott with two percent.
