Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie became the second Republican candidate in a day to get booed at a Republican event in Florida for his opposition to former President Donald Trump — with the 2024 hopeful telling his hecklers that they “fear the truth.”
Christie spoke at the Florida Freedom Summit in Kissimmee, Florida, and was met with yells and boos the moment he took the stage, with cries of “Trump!” and “Drop out now!”
“What a shock, you’re for Trump, I’m gonna fall over dead,” he said. “Now look, every one of those boos, every one of those catcalls, every one of those yells will not solve one problem we face in this country.”
The boos kept coming and Christie, who has been a vociferous Trump critic and often endures jeers for his comments, continued to push back.
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“Your anger against the truth is reprehensible. When you think about the problems that our country and this world is facing… this type of pettiness is beneath the process of electing a president,” he said, before telling the crowd that they “fear the truth.”
“The problem is, you want to shout down any voice that says anything different than what you want to hear. And you can continue to do it… believe me, it doesn’t bother me one bit,” he said.
Christie’s hostile reception at the conference came shortly after former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson was booed for telling his fellow Republicans that “there is a significant likelihood that Donald Trump will be found guilty by a jury on a felony offense next year.”
“That may or may not happen. Before you vote in March and it might not make any difference to you, but it will make a difference for our chances to attract independent voters in November. It will make a difference for those down ticket races for Congress and Senate, and it will weaken the GOP for decades to come. As a party, we must support the rule of law,” he said.
The claim was met with boos from the crowd for over a minute.
“We cannot win as a country without integrity in the White House,” Hutchinson continued. “And while some will ignore that destructive behavior of the former president, I assure you we ignore it at our own peril. The next generation will not look favorably back on this time.”
A Quinnipiac national poll this week shows that Trump stands at 64% support in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 15% and former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at 6%.
The survey indicates Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Christie and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy each at 3%, with everyone else at 1% or less.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
