1 year ago
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for what he said was putting “politics ahead of his job,” after DeSantis snubbed President Joe Biden over the weekend during his visit to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Idalia.
“Your job as governor is to be the tour guide for the president, is to make sure the president sees your people, sees the damage, sees the suffering, what’s going on and what needs to be done to rebuild it,” Christie said during an interview on Fox News’ “The Brian Kilmeade Show.” “You’re doing your job. And unfortunately, he put politics ahead of his job. That was his choice.”
Christie, a rival of DeSantis in the Republican presidential primary, has personal experience navigating the optics of a visit from a Democratic president following a natural disaster. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, a storm that ravaged New Jersey in 2012, Christie greeted then-President Barack Obama at an Atlantic City tarmac with a warm handshake — and subsequently spent years defending himself against his “hug” with Obama that some conservative pundits suggested was the reason Mitt Romney lost the presidential election weeks later.
Christie praised Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who stepped in to meet Biden when he arrived in Live Oak on Saturday.
“Fortunately, Rick Scott, the United States senator and a former governor, two-term governor, who knows what it means to be governor, showed up and made sure that the president saw the things that he needed to see,” Christie said, in another dig at DeSantis.
The DeSantis campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Christie’s criticism. On Friday, the governor’s office cited security preparations and interference with recovery efforts as reasons for no meeting taking place.
Despite the continued attacks over his moment with Obama, Christie said on Tuesday that he had no regrets about the welcome he extended in 2012.
“I wouldn’t do a thing differently because my obligation is to the people who elected me. And the people who elected me were all the people of the state of New Jersey,” Christie told Kilmead. “And guess what. We were able to rebuild our state in record time, be able to bring it back to where it needed to be, and return our tourism the very next summer.”
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