Republican presidential prospect Chris Christie slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday for just lately dodging a query about the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
All through a town corridor in New Hampshire this week, a substantial faculty university student requested DeSantis irrespective of whether previous President Donald Trump’s steps that working day “violated the tranquil transfer of electricity.”
DeSantis, nevertheless, danced around the issue. He asked the pupil in which he goes to superior university, claimed the 2024 election was “about Biden’s failures” and urged against “relitigating issues that occurred two, a few several years in the past.”
“I wasn’t any where in close proximity to Washington that working day. I have absolutely nothing to do with what transpired that working day,” he said. “Obviously, I did not love observing, you know, what transpired. But we’ve bought to go ahead on this things. We can’t be hunting backwards and be mired in the past.”
Christie sharply criticized DeSantis reply through an interview on CNN Wednesday evening.
“He wasn’t any where near Washington. Did he have a Tv? Was he alive that working day? Did he see what was heading on? I signify, that’s one particular of the most absurd answers I’ve heard in this race so much,” Christie mentioned.
“We had associates of Congress who have been functioning for their life,” he additional. “We experienced individuals attempting to hunt down the vice president of the United States, chanting, ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ And Donald Trump the entire time sat outdoors the Oval Place of work, that tiny dining home of his, feeding on a effectively-completed cheeseburger and looking at Tv set and doing very little to quit what was going on till it received to the issue the place even he could no lengthier stand it.”
DeSantis’ presidential campaign did not straight away react to a ask for for remark.
Shortly following launching his presidential campaign final thirty day period, DeSantis reported he would take into consideration pardoning men and women involved in the Capitol assault, together with Trump, if elected.
In an visual appearance on a conservative radio present last month, DeSantis reported that on his very first working day in place of work, he would have his personnel examine instances of Jan. 6 rioters, anti-abortion demonstrators and dad and mom arrested in excess of their steps at college board meetings, and he would be “aggressive” in issuing pardons.
“We will use the pardon electrical power — and I will do that at the front conclusion,” DeSantis mentioned, saying that the Justice Division and the FBI experienced been “weaponized” to unevenly punish folks from “disfavored teams.”
Requested whether or not he would look at pardoning Trump if he have been charged with federal offenses, DeSantis stated that “any example of disfavored treatment method based on politics or weaponization would be integrated in that critique, no make any difference how modest or how massive.”
