'Disgusting': Chris Christie knocks Donald Trump for 'dog whistling' about undocumented immigrants

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slammed former President Donald Trump for his attacks on immigrants during a recent campaign rally.

“He’s disgusting,” Christie said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “What he’s doing is dog whistling to Americans who feel absolutely under stress and strain from the economy and from the conflicts around the world.”

At a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday, Trump said immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”

“They’ve poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia,” Trump said. 

Trump, Christie added on Sunday, “is dog whistling to blame” the country’s problems “on people from areas that don’t look like us.”

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The former New Jersey governor, the most outspoken critic of Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, also went after another one of his rivals, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, on Sunday. Christie zeroed in on Haley repeatedly calling Trump the right president at the right time, even as she has dialed up some criticism.

“Nikki Haley should be ashamed of herself, and she’s part of the problem. Because she’s enabling him. She’s enabling him by saying to people it’s OK.” Christie said. “Let me be really clear. I’m in this race to let people know it’s not OK. It’s not OK for an American president to be saying these things.”

Christie on Sunday also blasted Trump for his four sets of criminal indictments and for quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin at a recent campaign stop. The former New Jersey leader warned that Trump will not be able to beat President Joe Biden in the 2024 general election, if he becomes the GOP nominee.

“We can’t beat Joe Biden with a convicted felon. We can’t beat Joe Biden with someone who talks that way about immigrants to this country. And we can’t beat Joe Biden with someone who is in bed with Vladimir Putin.”