Former New Jersey governor and presidential Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie told CNN that Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy was proper in his preliminary evaluation about whether or not former president Donald Trump was the strongest candidate to beat Joe Biden in a common election contest.
Earlier this week, Mr McCarthy mentioned he was undecided that Mr Trump was the strongest candidate to beat Mr Biden.
“Can he win that election? Yeah he can,” he mentioned. “The query is, is he the strongest to win the election? I don’t know that reply.”
Mr McCarthy later backtracked in an interview with Breitbart by which he mentioned that Mr Trump is in a stronger place than he was in 2016 and reportedly called Mr Trump to apologise.
Mr Christie mentioned that Mr McCarthy did so as a result of he has to take care of a contentious Republican convention, with solely a slim majority in the Home of Representatives. Mr McCarthy needed to endure a marathon 15 rounds of votes earlier this 12 months earlier than he turned speaker.
“As a result of he must rely to 218 daily, daily, given the guidelines that he is working beneath,” Mr Christie mentioned, citing the quantity wanted to succeed in a majority in the Home. “So it is not an excuse for Kevin, however it’s a proof as to what he is as much as. He is attempting to get issues finished in the Home of Representatives. He is managing a really troublesome caucus, and a really slim majority.”
Mr Christie launched his marketing campaign principally to criticise the twice-impeached and twice-indicted former president whom he endorsed in 2016.
“However I feel his first assertion is what he actually believes, which is that he would not assume Donald Trump is the strongest candidate to be current,” Mr Christie mentioned of Mr McCarthy.
Mr Christie faces an uphill battle to turn out to be the Republican nominee. A St Anselm School ballot confirmed that whereas he’s in third place in New Hampshire, he’s solely at six per cent, far behind Mr Trump and Florida Gov Ron DeSantis.
