Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said Monday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that the Republican National Committee was trying to restrict debate to help former President Donald Trump.
On Trump, anchor Jen Psaki said, “He is the leading candidate, far and away, the Republican front runner. What do you think that says about the party right now? This is a guy who’s making threats, he’s attacking the prime minister of Israel, and he still faraway the front runner in the Republican primary.”
Christie said, “He is the incumbent. He’s won the nomination twice. Most Republicans think about him more than they think about the rest of us. That’s our job over the next three or four months, is to start to, you know, go after that, and what you need to do as a candidate, as have your views in your thoughts out there is clearly indirectly as possible.”
He continued, “You saw today that the super PAC that supports our candidacy put out a very direct ad with me calling Donald Trump a fool and unfit for office. You saw Ron DeSantis’ super PAC put out on that day when he’s implying bad things about Trump, but they won’t even say his name. That’s not leadership, that’s cowardice. And, you know, the fact is that if we want to have a race where you can actually beat the front runner, you have to actually run against the front runner.”
Christie added, “And you’ve seen the RNC trying to restrict argument and debate. Vivek Ramaswamy and I were going to have a conversation on another network for 45 minutes, and the RNC told us if we did it, would be kept off the debate stage because Trump doesn’t want these arguments on the debate stage. He doesn’t want them broadly given. That’s why, you know, for folks out there who care about this and want to take Trump on directly, make sure they keep me off the debate stage.”
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