OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
2024 GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie got testy when Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer praised former President Donald Trump’s record on immigration.
During an interview on “America’s Newsroom,” Hemmer kicked off the segment by noting that Trump is “crushing it” in the polls, which led to him asking if voters actually want a Trump critic in the Republican primary. Christie — who has clearly positioned himself as a “Trump critic” — was not pleased with Hemmer’s opening praise of Trump.
After shrugging off Trump, Christie turned his attention to President Joe Biden. That led to Hemmer bringing up the border, prompting Christie to agree “the border is ridiculous.”
That’s when Hemmer opined that Trump’s policies “did much better on everything that you just mentioned.”
“Wait a second, Bill. His policies did not do better at the border. Not true,” Christie retorted. “Remember what he promised in 2016? He was going to build a wall across the entire border in the first four years and Mexico was going to pay for it. We got a wall that’s about a quarter of the way done and Mexico hasn’t given us one peso yet. So Donald Trump in 2016 was the guy who had no record, so he couldn’t be examined in a very specific way. He now said he was going to do that with immigration. And by the way, he had Congress for the first two years fully controlled by the Republicans. Not one change in the immigration laws.”
“You can go down to the border today and see piles of steel that are just laying there in the Arizona desert,” Hemmer said.
“Those piles of steel have been sitting there since Donald Trump was president,” Christie shot back. “He didn’t get it done. He couldn’t convince a Republican Congress to fund the wall. He couldn’t finish it and he didn’t change one immigration law.”
WATCH:
Christie made headlines recently when he drew muted groans from a small audience during his campaign launch when he appeared to take a cheap shot at Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner.
“The grift from this family is breathtaking. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Kushner walk out of the White House, and months later get $2 billion from the Saudis,” he said, going on to criticize Kushner’s role in then-President Donald Trump’s White House.
“You think it’s because he’s some kind of investing genius? Or do you think it’s because he was sitting next to the president of the United States for four years doing favors for the Saudis? That’s your money. That’s your money he stole and gave it to his family. You know what that makes us? A banana republic,” he said.
Notably, Donald Trump lost about $1 billion in personal wealth during his presidency and never took one penny in salary, donating his annual $400,000 salary to various government agencies instead.
Former President Trump responded on his Truth Social platform: “How many times did Chris Christie use the word SMALL? Does he have a psychological problem with SIZE? Actually, his speech was SMALL, and not very good. It rambled all over the place, and nobody had a clue of what he was talking about. Hard to watch, and boring, but that’s what you get from a failed Governor (New Jersey) who left office with a 7% approval rating and then got run out of New Hampshire. This time, it won’t be any different!”
Last month, Tucker Carlson took a verbal shot at Christie after he criticized the former Fox News host over his stances on steering clear of the war in Ukraine.
Christie told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos that Carlson has “always been wrong” about Ukraine, which prompted a response from the “Tucker on Twitter” host.
“Sounds like this could use a longer conversation. We just asked Christie to sit down and explain his views on Ukraine. He refused,” Carlson noted on Twitter.
“You hate to think that Chris Christie is a blustery coward who plays the tough guy with sycophants at ABC but won’t answer real questions, but who knows? We hope he reconsiders,” Carlson added.
