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MANCHESTER, N.H. – Chris Christie thinks someone has to take down Donald Trump and he is the one to do it.
The former New Jersey governor has long been mulling a second presidential campaign and made it official Tuesday night in New Hampshire during a town hall at Saint Anselm College, not only vowing to defeat the former president, but to take the 2024 Republican nomination for himself.
“I can’t guarantee you success in what I’m about to do. But I guarantee you that at the end of it, you will have no doubt in my mind who I am and what I stand for and whether I deserve it,” Christie said, partially referencing a letter from founding father John Adams to his wife Abigail Adams. “That’s why I came back to New Hampshire to tell all of you that I intend to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2024.”
Christie framed the country as a nation which has experienced countless failures in leadership, casting blame on former President Barack Obama, Trump and President Joe Biden for making the United States “smaller” and dividing Americans.
“I’ve watched our country over the last decade which seems to be getting smaller and smaller,” Christie said. “Smaller in every way. Smaller in the way we talk to each other. Smaller in the way we look at each other. Smaller in the things that we talk to each other about. Smaller in the issues that we care enough to get angry about.”
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“And I thought to myself why do I continue to get this feeling that America for the first time in it’s history is getting smaller. And what I’ve concluded is we’ve had leaders who have led us to being small,” Christie said.
Christie’s campaign will be largely focused on New Hampshire – a risky strategy considering the state rejected him in 2016, delivering a killing blow to his last White House bid. It was a disappointing performance that Christie now takes in stride.
“I’ve lost. You people did that to me in 2016,” Christie joked to the crowd. “All of you.”
Christie is entering a crowded Republican presidential field with Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leading the pack and dominating the headlines. Other candidates include the likes of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Former Vice President Mike Pence is also slated to announce his own presidential bid Wednesday.
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While most of the 2024 GOP candidates have expressed hesitancy to go after Trump, Christie made it no secret he has no reservations about attacking the former president. In fact, a large part of his campaign will center on taking on Trump.
“A lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog is not a leader,” Christie said.
And if there was any question of whether Christie was referring to the former president in his announcement speech, he dispelled any assumptions.
“Let me be clear in case I have not been already. The person I am talking about, who’s obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault, who always finds someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong but finds evevy reason to take credit for anything that goes right is Donald Trump,” Christie added.
The former New Jersey governor has long been flirting with a presidential bid and hosted town halls this year exclusively in New Hampshire, hinting at his campaign’s central strategy of capturing Granite State voters.
It is not only about defeating Trump – Christie has repeatedly said he would only run if he truly believed he had a chance at winning.
“How are those two things mutually exclusive?” Christie said of his own desire to defeat Trump but to also take the Oval Office. “Let me be very clear, I am going out there to take out Donald Trump, but here’s why: I wanna win.”
“There is one lane to the Republican nomination and (Trump’s) in front of it. If you want to win, you better go right through him,” Christie added.
Christie slammed the rest of the presidential field for refusing to criticize Trump, calling his opponents “pretenders.”
“And so now we have pretenders all around us who want to tell you ‘Pick me cause I’m kind of like what you picked before, but not quiet as crazy, but I don’t want to say his name,'” Christie said.
Christie dismissed the possibility his campaign could alienate Trump’s most diehard supporters and said there is no such thing as a “Trump voter,” adding he thinks he can make them consider his 2024 bid. His campaign promise of “straight talk from New Jersey” he hopes, will at least entice some voters to join his side.
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Christie’s town hall was not all about Trump. The former New Jersey governor had no qualms about attacking the rest of the field.
On DeSantis, Christie went after his characterization of the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute,” which DeSantis has since walked back.
“When you roll tanks and artillery into a free country to by force murder them and take their land, that ain’t a territorial dispute, that’s war,” Christie said, adding the war could inspire China to invade Taiwan. “That’s an act of dictatorial aggression and if we don’t stand up, why will China not go to Taiwan?”
Christie set his sights beyond just the two major frontrunners in the race, taking aim at entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for describing the war in Ukraine as “not a top foreign policy priority.”
“Foreign policy is complicated, very complicated but in another sense it’s very simple,” Christie said. “The more friends you have in a finite world, the better off you’re gonna be.”
Christie on 2024 election: ‘We can’t dismiss the question of character anymore’
Not only is Christie hoping to capitalize on the anti-Trump vote, his announcement speech heavily focused on character, harkening back to the founding fathers as the country’s best leaders, invoking figures such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
“Washington, Adams and Jefferson and Franklin and Hamilton were men of character. As was Abigail Adams, a woman of character,” Christie said. “We can’t dismiss the question of character anymore anybody. If we do, we get what we deserve.”
Christie subtly cast himself as one of those leaders but added he is not a perfect person himself. His ability to admit his own flaws, he suggested to voters, is a sign of his character.
“If you are in search of the perfect candidate, it is time to leave,” Christie joked to voters. “I am not it. And not only am I not the perfect candidate, I’m far from the perfect person.”
“If your leaders are not willing to admit to you that they’re fallible, that they make mistakes, that they hurt like you, that they bleed like you and that they suffer disappointments and letdowns, beware.” Christie continued.
New Hampshire 2024 GOP voters appreciate Christie’s New Jersey roots
Compared to other candidate announcements which tend to be packed with already-decided supporters, Christie made his presidential campaign official at a town hall that was filled with a swath of undecided New Hampshire GOP primary voters.
A large portion of the crowd that came to see the former New Jersey governor told USA TODAY one simple criteria for their preferred GOP candidate: anyone but Trump. Those voters are who Christie and his campaign are hoping to court.
“To beat a bully, you gotta punch him in the nose,” Sylvain Theroux, 57, from Hooksett said.
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Theroux, a registered Republican, said the GOP field is an entirely open race for him, but he has strictly ruled out voting for Trump in 2024 even though he voted for him in the 2020 election.
“I like Christie, he’s a good speaker. He takes all the punches, he always comes out good,” Theroux added.
Aldrian Rostron, 73, from Nashua and an undeclared voter, said she specifically appreciates Christie’s willingness to go after Trump. Rostron voted for Biden in the 2020 election but said she plans on voting in the GOP primary.
“I like a lot of what he says. I like that he’s not afraid of Trump,” Rostron said. “He’s someone who I would consider.”
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