WASHINGTON – Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie took his New Hampshire-centric campaign to South Carolina on Friday, but gave southern Republican voters the same message: The party cannot afford to nominate Donald Trump.
Conducting a town hall in Columbia, S.C., Christie said he is the only Republican candidate willing to call out Trump as a liar and a grifter, while other challengers are giving him a pass.
“They won’t tell you the truth about Donald Trump,” Christie said. “They won’t do it … they’re afraid of him.”
Christie also attacked Democratic President Joe Biden. He said his first motivation for getting into the presidential race was “we have to get rid of Joe Biden.”
The former New Jersey governor has spent most of his campaign travel in New Hampshire, where he finished virtually last in the 2016 primary. Christie’s interest in South Carolina comes as other candidates, including Trump, have made appearances in the state.
“I’m here in South Carolina because you know what?” Christie said. “You have a unique position and you know it.”
‘Joe Biden has let this country down’
Christie opened his town all by arguing that both he and his wife feel “Joe Biden has let this country down in just about every way you can think of.”
“He ran for president in 2020 saying he’s gonna bring the country together, that he was going to be a moderate leader for the country and try to bring the two extremes of both parties into a place where they could work together,” Christie said. “And a lot of people − I mean − that a lot of people voted for him based on that idea. And he came into office and he ran as far left as he could.”
Christie criticized Biden on inflation, the withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan and his handling of energy independence. He also attacked Biden for his age saying that he is past his “sell-by date.”
Christie on Trump: ‘He’s proven he can’t do it’
Many Republicans know that Trump is a liar and a grifter, Christie said, but say they agree with his policies. And yet Trump has been a failure there too, the former New Jersey governor said.
During his time in office, he said, Trump failed to build much of a border wall, added $6 trillion to the federal debt, and left many promises unfulfilled.
“He’s proven he can’t do it,” Christie said.
In arguing against Trump, Christie said the former president is more concerned with the criminal indictments pending against him than with the job of being president.
To that point, Christie cited reports that Trump is using about half of his campaign contributions for legal fees.
“That and that alone should disqualify him from being our nominee in 2024,” Christie said.
Christie talks classified documents probe, Jan. 6 case
Christie noted that Trump’s classified documents trial is scheduled in May 2024, and said Republican voters should think long and hard before nominating a man who could be convicted of a crime before the party’s nominating convention.
“If you’re a Republican in this room, who is committed to wanting to defeat Joe Biden because you think he’s not the right president, why in God’s name would we nominate somebody who is going to be on federal criminal trial five and a half months before Election Day?” Christie said. “It is insanity. He did it to himself.”
Christie said that Trump “lied and obstructed the government” from obtaining the classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House in 2021.
On special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation, Christie said he doesn’t know what the charge or charges will be, noting that he is a “careful prosecutor” who doesn’t comment on these things. However, he made clear Trump did not uphold the Constitution and that the country needs a president who understands law enforcement.
“He said that it was okay to suspend the Constitution if you think the election was stolen from you…now, I want to remind you what the oath of office is for president of the United States,” Christie said. “One of the things you swear to do and on a Bible is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States… anybody in my opinion who says that it’s okay to suspend the Constitution is disqualified from being president of the United States.”
‘I hate the attack on the validity of the court’
Christie emphasized in his speech the importance of an independent judiciary, highlighting that it is needed to “keep an eye on everybody else” in justice and that’s why judges are given lifetime tenure.
“I hate the attack on the validity of the court…I think if you look at the core of what the Supreme Court has stood for… they still have not given up on the rule of law,” Christie said.
He added that he’s concerned that when “we run down the Supreme Court because we disagree with the decision that we’re going to diminish the value of that court to our democracy.”
“It is the one thing that distinguishes us from every other free country in the world,” Christie said.
He said that his vision for the Supreme Court is looking for the “best qualified people” who are consistent with his philosophy of the role of federal courts in our government.
“You know what I also learned from picking judges as governor? They all forget who appoint them once they get in,” Christie said, noting later that is the “beauty of that system.”
Mental health problems need to be discussed, Christie says
Christie argued that one reason mental health problems are not being addressed is because of the lack of discussion around the issues and the stigma people attach to it.
“If someone in this room were diagnosed tomorrow with cancer, they would not for a minute hesitate to call their friends, their family, to seek their support, their prayers, their recommendations on treatment and all of those things.. if someone had a mental health issue, and we can name all the different ones but any of them, including addiction, which I believe is a mental health issue, we don’t talk about it,” Christie said.
He tied mental health issues into the problem with gun violence, claiming that solving the former issue can help curtail the latter.
“We know that many of the people who are involved in these mass shootings turned out to be people with serious mental health issues…and so the mental health piece of it is important to try to make those people understand that before they get to that point, there’s a place where they can get help and feel better,” Christie said.
The challenge in our country, he says, is that we do have a second amendment which gives people the right to buy and bear arms.
“And it’s not like we can treat it in my opinion, as if it’s an inferior amendment…and so that’s why I think that one, we have to treat mental health, two we got to enforce the laws we have before we start getting new ones,” Christie said.
Christie slams Hunter Biden gun charge: ‘Horrible mixed signal’
Christie criticized the investigation involving the president’s son, Hunter Biden, who agreed to a pretrial diversion program that could dismiss a felony charge regarding his unlawful possession of a gun despite being a drug user.
“Here he is addicted to drugs and he files a permit application to buy a firearm and it asks you directly in there. ‘Do you have an addiction to drugs?’ And he lies and he gets his permit and he gets his gun,” Christie said. “And there’s all evidence that he mishandled the gun…and now the Justice Department is dismissing the gun charge against him. It carries a 10-year sentence and they’re dismissing it. And to me, it sends a horrible mixed signal to people.”
He criticized the Democratic Party for allegedly refusing to enforce gun laws with their own members.
“The Democrats can’t continue to scream and yell that they want more gun laws,” Christie said. “But then when one of theirs violates the gun law, well, ‘We’ll make an exception there.'”
Christie outlines plan to address fentanyl crisis if elected president
As the former chairman of a commission handling opioid and drug abuse under the Trump administration, Christie said the fentanyl crisis was a crisis even before COVID-19.
If elected president, Christie said he would sign an executive order on his first day that sends the National Guard to the border with the task of prohibiting fentanyl and apprehending the drug cartels who are coming across.
Second, he said he will ask the CIA director to work with the Defense department to come up with a plan for the U.S. to take aggressive action against the drug cartels in Mexico.
“I will say to the president of Mexico, ‘I’m going to give you 90 days to help to clean that up. If you don’t clean it up in 90 days, then I’m going to avail myself of the tools that I have available as the president of the United States and the commander-in-chief of the greatest intelligence agency and the greatest army in the world. And we’re going to take care of it,'” he said.
Christie argued that treatment for addition to drugs, including opioids, needs to be made more broadly available.
