it? well, first let me say i think that chris christie provided the nation with, you know, such a valuable service, such a valuable moment. if it wasn t for chris christie, the truth about donald trump and the truth about this gop primary would be lost in history. so because he was so aggressive and assertive and firm in standing in that message, we all want to thank you for that. and why didn t he take off in new mexico, because this is primary. he would have done better in a general election. everything that chris christie stood for in this race truth, ethics, honor, you know, who has the integrity to be president, you know, to win the presidency, all this message falls on deaf ears in a republican primary. party doesn t want to hear it. when you re talking about a
this is just a political ploy. trump is dictator, he wants to be a dictator. it s interesting i did a show, sean hannity. did you ever hear of him? he s a very nice man. and he said essentially you re not going to be a dictator, are you? tell me. i think he was trying to give me a nicer question than you guys. he meant it very well. i said i m going to be a dictator for one day. we re going to do two things, the border. we re going to make it so tight you can t get in unless you come in legally. and then the other is energy. we re going to drill baby drill. after that i m not going to be a dictator. after that i m not going to be a dictator. and the prez picks it up. so i said i m going to be a dictator for one day. they cut it. i m going to be a dictator, but they cut the rest of the sentence. no, no. i am not going to be a dictator.
the fact you ve had an attorney for the former president of the united states making the argument that a president should be shielded from prosecution even for doing something like attempting to assassinate a political enemy simply because he was the president of the united states. i don t understand how you don t reckon with that on this debate stage. so to your point about that phantom, it s not just speaking about donald trump because he is the front-runner. it s not just speaking about donald trump because he himself is on the debate stage, it s speaking about donald trump because his very candidacy challenges our democracy and our rule of law. and it would seem impossible to vy for the presidency of the united states without reckoning with that core reality. and i thinkre that s the poi chris christie wass making because the four of us experienced his speech and his dropout together this afternoon. it was clearge that dropout cam at that point so he could if not be on the stage,
he just said, hoir not true. we ll remind people the day we took office 50% of schools were closed in this country. we had thousands of americans dying every day, and we went in, we put our head down, and we got the job done. if we want to talk about the economy, the president has created over 14 million jobs. he s brought manufacturing back to america. he has strengthened the supply chain. if you look at consumer confidence now and the unemployment rate, both are headed in the right direction. and so we re going to continue to harp on those numbers. for example, the racial wealth gap is the closest it s ever been. we increased black wealth by 60%. we still have a long way to go, but the numbers show we wake up every day working on those kitchen table issues, and we re going to remind people of the progress we made and the stumbling blocks in the way. if you look at the 3.6 million
to trump in the next republican nominee, i think those are valid answers. and i was stunned watching nikki haley say the obvious part, which is of course pre-s shouldn t be able to do whatever they want as president and face any consequence on that but she immediately pivoted that line of thinking into ron desantis lying. there are still such an uncomfortability in talking about the former president among these folks whose have to go through him if they want to get to the nomination. i think the other thing that i found so striking is that even though simone is right to point out the ways these candidates werewa willing to be somewhat critical of donald trump whether it was january 6th, election denialism or what haveon you, ty didn t go further on this stage than they d ever gone throughout this primary. haley will often say on the stump or at least when she this brought up to her, she thinks it was a terrible on january 6th and donald trump calls it a