WASHINGTON — (CNN) The focus of the 2016 race may have shifted to the escalating crossfire between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but Chris Christie is determined to talk about “things people really care about.”
In an interview on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday, Christie dismissed coverage of the front-runners’ feud, arguing instead that his campaign was focused on addressing voters’ concerns about the issues “and not the petty arguments back and forth between two people in this race.”
“I mean, do you think anybody really cares whether Hillary Clinton apologizes to Donald Trump, or Donald Trump apologizes to Hillary Clinton?” Christie asked. “They need to stop being so self-consumed and start talking about what people really want to hear, which is how we are going to keep the homeland safe and protected.”
The New Jersey governor was similarly combative during another interview on Tuesday morning, though toward a different target: Republican primary challenger Marco Rubio.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Christie offered a sharp criticism of the Florida senator for his spotty Senate attendance record and for missing a recent high-profile vote on a major spending bill,
“Senator Rubio said he was opposed to it,” Christie said, referencing the spending bill. “Yet he did not show up to speak on the floor, he didn’t show up to cast his vote. When you’re governor of New Jersey and you don’t like spending, you use the line item veto, and you make the argument to people. You show up and you get the job done.”
“You say you oppose spending but you do nothing about it. That should tell people something about what kind of an effective leader someone might be,” Christie added. “You have to figure out ways to do it. He should have shown up on the floor and made his case to his colleagues against that bill if he was so opposed to it. He didn’t. And that is a huge, substantive difference between the two of us.”
Both Christie and Rubio are betting on a strong finish in the crucial New Hampshire primary to propel them to the GOP nomination.
With both candidates in the state campaigning on Tuesday, Christie also took an opportunity during the interview to tweak Rubio over their New Hampshire face-off. He joked, “We’ve been looking for Marco but we can’t find him. We’ve had the bus all over New Hampshire, we haven’t been able to find him. We understand he did a very quick town hall here and then left to go back to Madison Avenue in New York.”
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