Chris Christie thinks Donald Trump’s stance on immigration makes him unfit for office.
Christie continued to make his case against his rival for the Republican presidential candidacy during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, where he called out the former president for comments he made at a campaign event in New Hampshire the day prior.
Trump, the Republican Party’s current frontrunner, was openly xenophobic during the speech, where he told crowds that immigrants are “pouring” into the US and “poisoning the blood of our country.”
“He’s disgusting,” Christie told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “And what he’s doing is dog-whistling to Americans who feel absolutely under stress and strain from the economy and from the conflicts around the world. And he’s dog-whistling to blame it on people from areas that don’t look like us.”
The former governor of New Jersey also accused Republicans of enabling Trump, pointing fingers at members of congress and fellow primary candidate Nikki Haley.
“You’re telling me that someone who says that immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country,” Christie asked. “Someone who says Vladimir Putin is a character witness is fit to be president of the United States, was the right president at the right time?”
During his Saturday speech, Trump cited Putin while attacking President Joe Biden as a “threat to democracy.”
The twice-impeached former president also complimented authoritarian politicians Viktor Orban and Kim Jong Un, describing the Hungarian Prime Minister as “highly respected” and calling North Korea’s Supreme Leader “very nice.”
Christie pitched himself as a sane choice for president yet again during the interview, telling Tapper: “I’m in this race to let people know it’s not OK. It’s not OK for an American president to be saying these things.”
“We’re going to take Donald Trump out by telling the truth, because the truth matters,” he added.
Trump’s comments come after the New York businessman likened immigrants to “vermin” during another New Hampshire speech last month.
Afterwards, Biden compared his words to “language you heard in Nazi Germany.”