MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski grilled Chris Christie over the failure of Donald Trump's rivals to call out the former president's escalating threats of violence and ongoing legal difficulties.
The former president was found liable for fraud this week, in which he also called for the execution of Gen. Mark Milley, and the "Morning Joe" co-host asked Christie why those topics didn't come up during the second Republican presidential debate, which Trump skipped.
"What the heck was that?" Brzezinski said. "What happened last night? Donald Trump is the frontrunner, he is the former president of the United States. A judge found him liable for massive fraud, and he called for the execution of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. How is it that nobody in the room brought that up last night?"
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Christie took several swipes at the ex-president, even calling him "Donald Duck" for ducking the event, and he insisted that he'd done enough to challenge Trump -- who called him a "bum" afterward on social media.
"What I did last night was take on Donald Trump directly, as I have all throughout," Christie said. "I took him on on Ukraine, I took him on on his relationship with [Russian president Vladimir] Putin. I took him on in his failure to show up, I took him on on $7 trillion added to the national debt, I took him on on failure to build the wall in Mexico. So, you know, I only have so much time, Mika. I hit all of those things. Maybe some of the points you wanted to have hit weren't hit, but I was responsive to the questions asked."
Brzezinski reminded him that he'd called for Milley's execution, and Christie said he had criticized Trump this week on social media and during interviews before the debate.
"It's hard for me to believe that I would come onto your show this morning, after what I did and said last night, and then you have criticisms that I didn't go after Donald Trump enough," Christie said. "You know, maybe it's just too early out here in California for me."
"No, no, no," Brzezinski said, cutting him off. "No, no, Chris, it's not just you. I'm asking, what was going on in that room, that that never came -- like, these two major headlines about Donald Trump, one that's absolutely frightening, okay, what is going on in that room with all of the Republican candidates? The [moderator] -- what is happening? What universe are we in that that doesn't come up? I'm not specifically pointing at you, but doesn't it seem strange?"
Christie claimed those topics never came up because the moderators never asked about them.
"Look, the questions were never asked, Mika," Christie said. "I'm not going to sit up here and be defense counsel for the other six candidates, because I did my job last night. I was the only one who went directly after Donald Trump on all the issues I just spoke about. I hope that you get to have each one of them on and ask them why they won't do it. I'll tell you why they won't do it, because they all want to either be Trump's running mate or in a cabinet if he becomes the nominee or the president, so I have no interest in that. I've been offered all those positions before by him, with the exception of vice president, and I turned them down. I have no interest in that, I want to be president of the United States."
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