Chris Christie and Marco Rubio got into a contentious exchange early on during Saturday night’s Republican presidential debate over the latter’s readiness to handle the country’s top job, and political analysts watching were quick to crown Christie the winner.
Christie tore into Rubio after the Florida senator said he was proud of his accomplishments in Congress, listing protecting Floridians from eminent domain abuse and implementation of sanctions against terrorists among them.
Christie immediately went on the offensive, saying senators wake up with different sets of problems than governors: “You have not been involved in a consequential decision where you had to be held accountable. You just haven’t,” Christie charged.
The New Jersey governor also hit Rubio for what he called “the drive-by shot at the beginning with incorrect and incomplete information and the memorized 20-second speech,” which he said “does not solve one problem.” (Check out Breitbart’s debate live wire for the complete exchange).
Analysts quickly took to social media to declare that Christie had crushed Rubio during the exchange. National Review’s Rich Lowry and the New York Times’ Nate Cohn summed up most commentators’ sentiments:
But a large field of political observers quickly backed them up:
The Washington Post’s Robert Costa:
The Los Angeles Times’ Robin Abcarian and Steven Zeitchik:
The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui:
The Daily Beast’s John Avlon:
Tampa Bay Times’ Ron Brackett:
Buzzfeed’s McKay Coppins:
NBC’s Chuck Todd:
NPR’s Jessica Taylor:
Yahoo News’ Hunter Walker: