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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he plans to make good on his previous threats to confront former President Donald Trump at some point in the near future after Trump continues to duck primary debates.
Christie said he would find Trump somewhere on the campaign trail but refused to specify when and where, Fox News reported.
“Get ready. That’s all I’m going to tell you,” Christie told Fox News in New Hampshire, where he filed to put his name on the GOP primary ballot. The state holds the second-in-the-nation primary after Iowa.
“Because if I give [Trump] and the Secret Service a tip as to where I’m going to be, it will be a lot harder for me to get to him. Remember, he’s the only guy walking around with Secret Service protection. So, that makes all of this a little more complicated. But I also was in law enforcement, so hang with me,” Christie, a former federal prosecutor, added.
Christie, for months, has been promising to take on Trump in person after the former president decided to forego the debates, citing his dominance in polling.
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Fox News added:
Christie, who like Trump is a master of in-your-face politics, repeatedly touted that he’s got the debate chops to target Trump. The former president remains the commanding front-runner for the Republican nomination as he makes his third straight White House run, even while juggling an historic four criminal indictments, including two for his alleged attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Biden.
But with Trump skipping the first two GOP presidential debates and saying he won’t take the stage at next month’s third debate, Christie pledged early last month that he’d find another way to make sure that the former president is not the Republican Party’s 2024 nominee.
“We’ve got 100-plus days until the primary. Donald Trump and I will come face-to-face, whether it’s on a debate stage or whether it’s when he’s walking out of a building somewhere,” Christie vowed.
Christie and Trump were GOP presidential opponents six years ago during the 2016 election cycle. But the former New Jersey governor crashed and burned, finishing far behind Trump, taking sixth place in New Hampshire. Trump would go on to crush the remaining crowded field of Republican candidates, though Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was the last of them to drop out.
Christie went on to endorse Trump and even served as head of his transition team. Christie also reportedly helped prepare Trump for his debates with then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Also, he headed up a presidential commission on opioids.
But the two had a falling out after Trump repeatedly said that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, a claim that he could never prove in court or in other legal venues, though tens of millions of his supporters agree with him. Since then, Christie has become one of Trump’s harshest critics.
“He’s completely full of crap, and he makes it up as he goes along,” Christie charged while in New Hampshire.
He went on to argue that Trump is “a soulless human being. He cares about no one but himself. And any New Hampshire voter who thinks he gives a d— about you, your life, your family, you’re kidding yourself. He doesn’t. So, if you think this race has been interesting up until now, I haven’t got my tank full of gas yet. He’s in for it.”
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He went on to say that “guys from New Jersey are used to dealing with obnoxious blowhards from New York our whole life, so we have no problem dealing with them in a presidential race.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, meanwhile, responded to Christie’s verbal assault, telling Fox News: “What a sad, pathetic parasite. He should really drop this fake tough guy act because everybody knows he’s a b**ch.”