Republican presidential candidate and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie arrives to speak at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority Conference June 23, 2023 at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images
Former New Jersey governor and Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie launched his latest offensive against Donald Trump on Fox News on Sunday.
He claimed the former president lied about the size of his rally attendees and failed to deliver on his political promises.
“People in the Republican Party and more generally across America are fed up with political candidates who are snake oil salesmen who just aren’t telling them the truth, who are telling them what they think they want to hear right now,” Christie said to Fox News.
Christie thought the estimated size of Trump’s rally attendees was “absurd”.
“Tens of thousands are no longer coming. That’s another big lie,” he added. “You just have to look at the pictures.”
Christie has emerged as one of Trump’s harshest critics, even as the former president, who is currently embroiled in multiple criminal investigations, has a significant lead in the crowded Republican nominee list.
Trump and Christie also disagree on Social Security reform.
Trump has refused to cut the program at all. In Sunday’s interview, Christie was even more vocal about his stance on means testing for Social Security, which would exclude people on higher incomes from receiving those benefits. He also stuck to his proposal to raise the retirement age.
“Do the exceptionally wealthy have to get Social Security? Do we really need Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk to get Social Security?” he said.
Christie, a former US attorney, also criticized the five-year investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes, saying it was “either a lie or incompetent”.
“There’s no way it should take five years to get a tax appeal on two counts and then get the gun charges against President Joe Biden’s son dismissed,” he said.
Christie launched his long-term candidacy on June 6 and is about 2.5% behind Trump’s numbers, though he’s picked up some momentum relative to other candidates, according to an aggregate poll by RealClear Politics. The former governor has also touted major donors supporting his campaign.
To earn a spot in the Republican primary debates beginning in August, GOP candidates must receive 40,000 donations and be above 1% in three national polls or two national polls and one state poll.
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