Christie: Trump wants to split Israel, Ukraine aid to ‘coddle Putin’  

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, criticized former President Trump for wanting to split up aid to Israel and Ukraine, saying Trump wants to “coddle” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“This is Donald Trump’s bad worldview,” Christie said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“He wants to do it and separate them because he wants to continue to coddle Putin, as he’s done from the minute he became president of the United States and then going forward from there,” Christie said. 

Christie explained that President Biden’s aid request is packaged together because, Christie said, the struggles in Ukraine and Israel are linked. 

“This aid is connected because these attacks are connected. There’s no doubt that Russia, China, and Iran, and North Korea are all working together to try to disrupt the world and create violence,” Christie said. 

“We need to support Israel, and support them strongly, and we need to support our friends in Ukraine as well,” he added. 

Biden’s $105 billion aid request has faced waning support among some House Republicans who have grown increasingly critical of Ukraine aid, while most have still supported the aid request for Israel.

Trump, the current GOP front-runner for president in 2024, was famously impeached in 2019 for threatening to withhold aid from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky if he did not cooperate and turn over evidence against Biden, his anticipated political rival in 2020. 

Christie stressed the importance of following through on promises to defend Ukraine. 

“We made a promise to them in 1992, when they removed nuclear missiles and returned them to Russia, that we would protect them if Russia attacked,” Christie said. “We need to keep our promises.”