CNN holding town hall with Chris Christie on June 12

CNN will host Chris Christie for a town hall on June 12 as the former New Jersey governor launches a longshot bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

The CNN announcement Tuesday came moments after Christie formally entered the 2024 race, joining a growing number of Republican candidates looking to take on former President Trump, who has been far outperforming his competitors in recent polls.

Christie will be the fourth candidate to join CNN for a town hall. CNN has already hosted town halls with Trump and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and the network will hold the next one with former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday.

The announcement also comes as the network grapples with the fallout from the Trump town hall, which drew high ratings but also outrage both inside and outside the company. Critics have accused CNN of essentially handing the former president a platform — complete with friendly audience — for an hour. CNN CEO Chris Licht has defended the event, though he has also come under increased scrutiny himself.

Christie’s town hall will be moderated by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who will be fielding questions from audience members and asking his own prepared slate of questions. 

CNN said the audience will be made up of Republicans from the first four states to vote in the GOP primary, as well as voters from New York and New Jersey, who have said they plan on voting in the GOP primary.  

Christie filed paperwork to run in the 2024 race earlier Tuesday and made his official announcement during a town hall in Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire that evening. He is positioning himself as Trump’s chief rival in this cycle, and he has not held back in criticizing the former president, in the last two years and in his launch speech, when he compared Trump to “Voldemort” from the Harry Potter series and said a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog is not a leader.”

“Let me be clear, in case I have not been already — the person I am talking about who is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault and who always find someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right is Donald Trump,” Christie said of his former ally at the event Tuesday.