Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) recently offered his take on the reason for former President Donald Trump's reluctance to participate in the upcoming Republican presidential debates.
Christie's remarks came during a recent discussion with conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt.
“Obviously, he’s afraid,” Christie told the talk-show host. “He’s afraid to get on the stage against people who are serious. And I’m sorry to see that he’s that afraid of it.”
Earlier this week, Trump — the Republican frontrunner for 2024 — indicated that he likely would not be appearing for the upcoming debates.
Speaking with Hewittt, Christie argued Trump is “'leading by seemingly insurmountable numbers' and doesn’t want to subject himself to being 'libeled and abused,'" HuffPost reports.
According to Christie, if Trump had good ideas to bring to the table, his polling would only increase favorably. So, according to Christie, there's only one reason why Trump doesn't want to debate — fear of dropping the ball.
During the discussion, Christie challenged Trump's position.
He said, “If he’s that afraid of that, how can we count on him to do any better with President Xi than the failures he had in his first term with China? How can we expect him to do any better with Putin than having set the groundwork for the invasion of Ukraine, which his conduct towards Putin certainly helped to establish?”
“This is a guy who seems like he’s afraid,” Christie said. “And if he’s afraid, he has no business being president.”
According to Christie, the former president doesn’t want to participate because “he doesn’t have a lot of serious answers for the problems that are facing the country right now.”
“All he wants to do is go back and re-prosecute the 2020 election because his feelings are hurt,” Christie added. “He’s a child in that regard.”
