Former New Jersey governor and presidential candidate Chris Christie isn’t surprised he was booed at the Faith and Freedom conference Friday, arguing his anti-Trump message is cutting through the noise and lifting him in the polls.
“Of course I expected the boos. That is predominantly a Trump crowd. But they need to hear the truth, too, that, you know, character is the single most important element of a president of the United States,” explained Christie. “You can’t know every issue that’s going to come across the president’s desk. It’s not a litmus test with check boxes in them. What you need to know is: What is the character of that person?”
When he was first confronted with the boos at the evangelical conference, Christie said to the audience “Boo all you want,” adding: “Our faith teaches us that people have to take responsibility for what they do.”
Appearing on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Christie said there is evidence his message is resonating.
“I’ve been in the race for less than three weeks and [I am] already in third place in New Hampshire, only four points behind Ron DeSantis, who’s been in the race for a longer time and is supposed to be the co-front-runner,” Christie explained.
The polls bear out Christie’s comments. The two most recent surveys of New Hampshire voters have Christie in third place: an NH Journal poll has the former New Jersey governor at nine percent, four behind DeSantis, and an American Greatness survey has Christie at seven percent, five points behind the Florida governor. A national poll released Sunday from NBC has Christie at five percent support, the most he’s been able to post thus far.
On Sunday, Christie continued criticizing Trump for his mishandling of classified documents. “He had the audacity to say he got indicted for us,” Christie said.
“I don’t know how it benefited the American people for him to take highly sensitive intelligence and secret documents out of the White House, to stonewall the government on returning them, for over a year and a half, to subject himself to a raid by the FBI, even though they asked him voluntarily to return this stuff, and to then be subject to an indictment which is obviously going to be one of great trouble for the country because no one wants to see this happen,” said Christie. “Donald Trump says that’s for us? I mean, it’s absurd.”
Since announcing his presidential run, the former governor has maintained that Republican voters must be confronted with the argument that the former president is a three-time loser.
“When did we get to the point we’re always blaming our adversaries for the weakness of our candidates?” said Christie earlier this month during a CNN town hall.
“‘Oh, it’s the Democrats’ fault, it’s the DOJ’s fault, it’s this person’s fault, it’s the media’s fault.’ How about it’s his? He hasn’t won a damn thing since 2016,” Christie said of Trump.