Christie on Trump quoting Putin during campaign rally: 'He gets worse and worse by the day'
GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie blasted former President Trump for quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin during a campaign rally Saturday night, emphasizing that the former president is only getting "worse."
"My reaction is that he gets worse and worse by the day, Jake, and voters better start paying attention to exactly what he's saying," Christie said on CNN's "State of the Union." "He has always been approving of Putin right from the beginning of his presidency. That was something that he and I had regular arguments about going all the way back to 2017."
Christie was responding to CNN's Jake Tapper, who asked what his reaction was to Trump citing the Russian leader at his campaign event over the weekend.
"Vladimir Putin of Russia says that Biden's — and this is a quote — 'politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy,'" Trump said at the rally.
Christie, an outspoken critic of Trump, questioned why the former president used Putin as "an expert on democracy." The former New Jersey governor has previously criticized Trump for his praise of Putin, saying earlier this year that it was "good to see Vladimir Putin has made his endorsement official" of Trump.
"This is a guy who doesn't even know what democracy is and, quite frankly, spent most of his life trying to undercut democracy all over the world," Christie said Sunday. "And Donald Trump citing him as his expert witness that he's being persecuted and is innocent, look, this is a guy who just believes: 'Woe is me, woe is me. I can't believe I got caught.'"
Trump is facing dozens of criminal charges in courtrooms across the country, including allegations of a hush money cover-up, mishandling of classified documents from his time in the White House and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump and his allies have maintained that he is innocent and argued that the indictments are politically motivated.