Christie on DeSantis: ‘People are really beginning to wonder what the hell he stands for’

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie visited the Miami area Friday, pitching himself not only as a better option than former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but also as an alternative to their brand of politics.

Speaking to voters in DeSantis’ and Trump’s backyard, Christie criticized the two leading GOP candidates’ policies as antithetical to Republicans’ long standing principles of limited government and personal responsibility. As voters sipped on cafecito and munched pastelitos at Casa Cuba in South Miami, the former New Jersey governor also took aim at Vivek Ramaswamy, a businessman and upstart politician rising in the polls.

“We have this group now, folks like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy. And these folks who believe in big government conservatism, if there’s something going on in the country that they don’t personally like, they want the government to pass a law to stop it,” Christie said, adding that “they want to put more power in the hands of the government.”

“That’s not what conservatives have stood for my whole life,” he said. “And if I’m President, I’m about empowering families to make decisions about their children’s lives, their education and their futures…”

At the event, which was organized by Miami’s Community News, Christie took questions from constituents on topics from Latin America to climate change. Some in attendance identified themselves as Democrats. Among the crowd was former Republican U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who said after the event that she attended “as an interested citizen” and was not endorsing Christie.

“We have a good crop of candidates and I hope that everyone goes out to vote,” she wrote in a text message.

Afterward, Christie went to Versaille, a traditional stomping ground in Little Havana for Republican presidential candidates looking to connect with voters in majority-Hispanic Miami. He shook hands and took photos with a handful of customers at the restaurant, and fielded questions from journalists.

Christie, who like the rest of the Republican presidential field trails Trump badly in polls, came to Miami less than one week before the first GOP primary debate, to be held Wednesday in Milwaukee. He is one of the nine candidates that have reportedly qualified for the debate, alongside Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. (Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said Friday that he has qualified, but advisers with the RNC quickly refuted his claim.)

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In a large field of candidates, Christie has positioned himself as a harsh critic of Trump. While DeSantis and others have portrayed themselves as better choices than the former President, Christie is calling for an upheaval of Trumpism within the Republican Party.

Asked to comment about a leaked campaign memo from a pro-DeSantis Super PAC that suggested Florida’s governor defend Trump on the debate stage rather than attack the former president, Christie said DeSantis’ mixed messages have been a contributing factor in his long slide in GOP presidential polls.

“Well, this campaign of his has gone from up here to down here, because people are really beginning to wonder what the hell he stands for,” Christie said. “And if what he stands for is defending Donald Trump, then just drop out of the race and endorse him.”

It wasn’t that long ago that Christie was considered one of Trump’s allies. He endorsed Trump in 2016 after he himself dropped out of that presidential race before eventually turning on the former president as Trump challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“I chose Donald Trump because I thought he was better than Hillary Clinton,” said Christie on his prior endorsement of Trump in 2016. “And … because I thought that I could make him a better candidate ... I was wrong. That’s it. It’s that simple. I was wrong.

“I don’t regret it because I don’t think Hillary Clinton would have been a whole lot better than Donald Trump. But today I have the guts to stand here and say what the truth is and nobody else on that stage is doing it.”

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Christie also said Trump would be “disrespectful” to Republican voters if he skipped the debate. Later Friday, the New York Times reported that Trump had chosen to avoid the event and instead do an interview with former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson.

“If [Trump]’s not tough enough and honest enough and smart enough to stand on the same stage with me and debate these issues then it’s time to come back to Mar-a-Lago and retire,” said the former Governor later that morning.

Christie is behind five other candidates in national polls and, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, he has little to no support in Iowa, which holds the first-in-the-nation nomination contest of the GOP. Even though he’s not a leading candidate, one recent poll found that he has managed to catch DeSantis for the second-place spot in New Hampshire.