During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie tore into Tim Kaine. In doing so, he called Hillary Clinton‘s VP pick “desperate” and “crazy” for criticizing Donald Trump.
The argument began over comments Trump made on Friday at a campaign rally in Miami. After accusing Clinton of wanting to “destroy your Second Amendment,” Trump suggested that her bodyguards drop their arms. “They should disarm,” the Republican presidential nominee said. “Take their guns away. She doesn’t want guns. Take their — let’s see what happens to her.”
Immediately prior to Christie’s interview with host Chris Wallace, Kaine had sat down to discuss Trump’s remarks with the Fox News Sunday host. Asked whether he believed that “Donald Trump in any way was inciting an act of violence against Clinton,” Kaine replied that he did. “I do believe that, Chris. I was stunned when I saw it, although he has done it before.” He went on:
“I’d like to punch the guy in the face. He is using language that is an incitement to violence or an encouragement of violence or at least being kind of cavalier and reckless about violence and that has no place in any election, especially an election to be president, commander in chief of this country.”
“What you’re saying is fairly stunning,” Wallace replied. “You believe it’s an incitement to violence against his opponent in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton?” Kaine told the host to put Trump’s comments “in the context of other things he has said,” such as when the Republican presidential hopeful suggested that “Second Amendment people” could do “something” to stop Clinton. “When you look at a series of these comments that he is making, I do believe it is an incitement or at a minimum an expression of indifference as to whether violence would occur,” Kaine said.
Minutes later, Christie’s image appeared on screen. “You just heard Senator Kaine say Trump was inciting an act of violence against Hillary Clinton,” Wallace said. “Your reaction, sir?”
“Man, I tell you something, boy, when a race gets tight, even a guy like Tim Kaine gets desperate. I mean, to imply — forget imply, he said that that was to incite violence is outrageous and he owes Trump an apology,” Christie replied. He went on:
“Senator Kaine should be ashamed of himself for saying that Donald Trump would like to have violence perpetrated against Hillary Clinton. It’s an outrageous statement but just shows how desperate and scared the Clinton/Kaine campaign is now because this race is now a dead heat and they can’t believe it and they are going to get even worse news as we move forward here because Donald is going to continue to do even better.”
Wallace seemed skeptical. “Do you think it’s responsible, though, sir?” he asked. “I mean, the fact is you have a security detail. Obviously, Hillary Clinton has a security detail. You’re not average citizens. So, to suggest that you might want gun control for the larger population but that doesn’t necessarily imply to a public figure like yourself, is that really hypocrisy?”
Christie insisted the only “hypocrisy” is on “Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine’s part” for wanting to “remove Second Amendment rights” from people. “I think what Donald was trying to do was make a point that, you know, she wants one set of rules for herself and a different set of rules for everybody else,” Christie said. “For Senator Kaine to go as overboard as he did this morning, breathlessly accusing Donald Trump of inciting violence against Hillary Clinton, it’s outrageous, it’s beneath him and he should take a deep breath, get used to the fact that this is going to be a very close race and stop all the craziness.”
