Chris Christie Plunges Knife Over Haley Gaffe: ‘Slippery, Slick Politician’ Running to Be Trump’s VP
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie excoriated ex-Ambassador and GOP rival Nikki Haley for her comments on the Civil War and slavery earlier this week, calling her a “slippery, slick politician” trying to position herself to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate next year during an appearance on CNN This Morning Friday.
“Here’s the bottom line on this. Nikki Haley, as I defended her in the fourth debate, as you’ll remember, is a smart woman and she knows better. Look, she’s been having this problem for decades in terms of her answer about this,” began Christie. “If you go back to her running for governor in 2010, she said that the Civil War was about change versus tradition. She called slavery a tradition. And change versus tradition — it’s not change versus tradition, Phil. It’s right versus wrong.”
He continued:
And, you know, let’s stop with the, you know, with the comments about “Well, I’m from the South, so you know that.” Well, then she should have said that and known that the first reason given in the secession notice from the South Carolina government at the time the Civil War began was because the North opposed the expansion of slavery to the Western territories. Now, Nikki knows all that, and she’s not saying it because she’s afraid to say it because this has been her whole campaign. She does not want to offend anyone. She won’t tell the truth about Donald Trump, even though she knows that he was the cause of January 6. She won’t say it even though she knows that he regularly lies. She won’t say it. And even last night, Phil, she was asked by a voter again in New Hampshire, would she categorically rule out being Donald Trump’s vice president? And she won’t answer the question. These are simple questions to a smart woman. And when she doesn’t answer them, you have to believe she’s being a slippery, slick politician who wants to be everything to everybody. And it’s too late in this game to do that.
Host Phil Mattingly then played a clip of Haley telling a voter that the difference between Christie and herself is that he is “obsessed” with Trump and asserting that she was “thinking bigger than that.”
Christie responded by arguing that “if you call being evasive and on both sides of an issue bigger, than I guess she is being bigger than that.”
“I mean look, it’s pretty simple here. Donald Trump has been leading in the polls in this race by 20-25 points for months, and she won’t talk about him. She says he was the right president at the right time. She says that for some reason, chaos and drama follow him wherever he goes. You know, that’s like the arsonist saying, ‘You know, for some reason, burning buildings follow me wherever I go,'” added Christie. “This is a guy who sets these fires, divides this country, lies to us on a regular basis, and is under four criminal indictments. And Nikki Haley calls him the right president at the right time and won’t preclude being his vice president.”
He wasn’t done tearing into Haley:
Look, this is the important thing for people out there who don’t want more of Donald Trump. She’s willing to be his running mate. And until she says he isn’t — she isn’t willing to do that, then we must assume she is, that she’s protecting this. And look, if she’s wondering about how to answer these questions in New Hampshire, I’m sure Governor Sununu will explain it to her and hopefully he will over the course of the next 24 hours for her sake. But right now, I think New Hampshire is seeing the slippery, slick Nikki Haley who won’t answer questions definitively, won’t say whether she’s willing to be his vice president, won’t say whether Donald Trump is unfit to be president, won’t say whether slavery is the cause of the Civil War definitively.
Christie had previously slammed Haley for her comments on Thursday.
Watch above via CNN.
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