GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie went after former President Trump for suggesting the Republican National Committee (RNC) nix remaining primary debates, claiming Trump is scared of the competition.
“He wants to end these things for purely selfish reasons because he doesn’t want to give exposure to the candidates who are challenging him out there,” Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, said in a CNN interview Friday.
Trump chose to skip the first two primary debates and will likely skip the third, arguing that they are not necessary given his large polling lead. Christie has consistently called out Trump for not showing up.
“He has no validity to the point he’s making. He’s ducking these debates,” Christie said. “It’s wrong and it’s disrespectful to Republican voters and that’s why I’m going to continue to push for these debates to go forward.”
He also criticized Trump’s argument for not attending, saying national polls don’t show the full picture of the primary campaign.
“I know all the media organizations pay for these national polls and they are a monumental wase of time and money,” he said. “We don’t have a national primary.”
On the debate stage Wednesday, Christie spoke to Trump directly and called him out for not attending. Few other candidates made jabs at Trump, to the former governor’s disappointment.
“I don’t understand what they’re doing, because if you want to go beat, you have to go beat him,” he said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — seen as Trump’s closest competition in the 2024 race — and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley also criticized the former president for his decision.
“Donald Trump is missing in action,” DeSantis said Wednesday during the second GOP debate in California. “He should be on this stage tonight.”
“You can’t win if you’re absent,” Haley said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday. “I think that, you know, he’s got a lot of questions to answer to.”
The next GOP primary debate is scheduled for Nov. 8 in Miami. Christie doesn’t think Republican leadership will be getting rid of the debates any time soon.
“I think they’ll just ignore what’s obviously self-serving,” he said, adding “bad advice from Donald Trump.”