New Jersey Governor Chris Christie mocked Sen. Rand Paul for his increasingly negative campaign after a primary debate where he repeatedly challenged the New Jersey Governor and Sen. Marco Rubio.
During the debate, Paul suggested that Christie was the guy who would likely start World War III, reminding the audience about the “Bridgegate” scandal that occurred under his administration.
On ABC’s This Week, Christie dismissed Paul’s comments as “commentary from a desperate candidate on the last legs of his campaign.”
“He was flailing away at everybody on that stage,” Christie continued, pointing out that Governor Bobby Jindal had followed the same strategy in the undercard debate.
“All he did was flail away at people and then a few days later, he dropped out,” Christie said, referring to Jindal. “Maybe that’s Rand Paul’s fate.”
Paul made the CNN main debate stage after protesting the polling criteria required to make the main stage. CNN decided to include Paul “in the spirit of being as inclusive as possible.”
Christie and Paul have a long history of conflict — even before they were officially presidential opponents.
In 2013, Christie criticized Paul and other libertarian Republicans for trying to smear the National Security Agency, referring to the political conversation in Washington as “esoteric, intellectual debates” that were separated from the truth of 9/11 victims.
Paul accused Christie in July 2013 for having a “gimme, gimme, gimme all my money” problem when requesting disaster relief funds from Congress after Hurricane Sandy and called him the “king of bacon” — referring to pork barrel spending.
As the 2013 feud continued, Paul eventually offered Christie the opportunity to come to Washington D.C. for a “beer summit.” Christie dismissed the idea, pointing out that he was “responsible for actually doing things and not just debating.”
In the first Fox News debate in August, the pair hammered each other on issues of national security and privacy in surveillance practices.
“Listen, senator, you know, when you’re sitting in a subcommittee, just blowing hot air about this, you can say things like that,” Christie said, after Paul repeatedly cited the Fourth Amendment concerns over surveillance programs.
Christie dismissed the three Republican senators running for president as part of the problem in Washington during the CNN debate last week.
“If your eyes are glazing over like mine, this is what it’s like to be on the floor of the United States Senate,” he said. “I mean, endless debates about how many angels on the head of a pin from people who’ve never had to make a consequential decision in an executive position.”
Christie’s campaign has found new life in New Hampshire, surging to 11 percent in the state after only earning 3 percent in October, according to a recent Franklin Pierce/Boston Herald poll. The New Jersey Governor also turned around his favorability ratings in the state from a low of 46 percent to a new high of 64 percent.
Paul only earned 3 percent in the same poll.
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