Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie was on the receiving end of a rude awakening after he discovered that voters don’t share the media’s love for him, being repeatedly booed during Wednesday night’s debate.
On the morning after the audience at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum showed him that life is very different outside of the television studios that he’s been a fixture in for months, the former New Jersey governor cast blame on the Fox News moderators for not running a tighter ship.
Back in his comfort zone on CNN, the blustering Christie whined to Poppy Harlow, complaining about how moderators Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier handled the event.
(Video: CNN)
“What do you think your weakest moment was?” Harlow asked.
“I think the weakest moment for me was the weakest moment for everybody, Poppy, which was that that stage was completely out of control. And I’m disappointed that the moderators didn’t play a stronger hand in controlling what was going on,” Christie said.
“There were a couple of folks on stage last night who felt they could go over time, every time that they could interrupt and had a right to speak on every issue. And that’s where the moderators have to say no and shut them down. And that didn’t happen,” he added. “And so what it led to was there being no sense of control or focus on the debate…large portions of it.”
Harlow responded, “I asked for your weakness, but I don’t think you’re going to answer that. You did get the second most talk time. I’ll just say that,” noting that the former governor ducked her original question on what was his weakest moment.
It was a tough night for Christie as boos rained down, at one point causing Baier to scold the crowd to behave during an exchange with the younger, more mentally agile political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy who ran rings around him.
.@VivekGRamaswamy whoops Christie’s fat ass all across the stage pic.twitter.com/RdojKphD3X
— BizPac Review (@BIZPACReview) August 24, 2023
Christie’s butt-hurt over being humiliated by Ramaswamy bled over onto CNN where he complained about the biotech entrepreneur whose willingness to say things that others don’t dare has made him into a star with the same breed of conservative voters who embraced Trump, another outsider who refused to defer to the establishment politicians.
“I am no more concerned about Vivek Ramaswamy than I am about anybody else in the race and last night, he just decided that he was going to try to talk as much as he possibly could and insult everybody on the stage,” Christie said.
“This is a guy who’s barely ever voted, and now he wants to insult all of us who have been giving to the public, been in public life for decades, sacrificing to try to make this a better country while he’s been sitting on the sidelines pouting and not voting or participating in the process,” he added.
Trump, who recently drew fire for referring to his morbidly obese antagonist as a “fat pig” just couldn’t resist jabbing his one-time ally.
“Why is Chris Christie wasting his time. Look at the crowds reaction to him!” Trump wrote on Truth Social with a video of Ramaswamy and the crowd’s tormenting of Christie.
(Screenshot: Truth Social)
Christie also appeared on Fox News on Thursday where he was asked by Neil Cavuto whether the booing sent a message that he has no chance of winning the nomination.
(Video: Grabien)
“You got a lot of people booing you. And unlike Ronald Reagan, he was not booed by many in his own party at the time. Did you get a sense with that exchange, Governor, that you don’t have a chance at this nomination?” Cavuto asked.
“Not at all. And in fact, look, the hall is a small group of people compared to our Republican Party across the country. And that’s why, Neil, if you look at the newest poll that’s come out of New Hampshire just three days ago, I’m now comfortably in second place at 14 percent of the vote,” Christie responded, betting big on the Granite State primary next year, a state where he was humiliated in 2016.
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