Chris Christie: Marco Rubio won't be able to "slime" his way to White House
Chris Christie fired away at Marco Rubio Tuesday, after a super PAC supporting Rubio, Conservative Solutions, put up a pair of ads in New Hampshire attacking Christie.
"I just don't think Marco Rubio's going to be able to slime his way to the White House," Christie said in an interview with the Washington Post Tuesday. "He wants to put out a whole bunch of negative ads? Go ahead. I hope that he will acknowledge at some point that I couldn't care less."
The New Jersey governor also slighted Rubio's experience in politics. "He's never been in a tough race in his life," he said, before bringing up Rubio's work on a bipartisan 2013 immigration reform bill that was widely rejected by conservatives.
"The guy who advocated for amnesty and then ran away when the topic got too hot tells you two things: He's not a reliable conservative, A, and, B, whenever it gets too hot, Marco turns tail and runs," he said. "I'm not the least bit concerned that Marco Rubio will hurt me with conservatives. Marco Rubio has work himself to do with conservatives."
The first spot released by Conservative Solutions highlights the times Christie has strayed from conservative orthodoxy.
"Chris Christie could well be Obama's favorite Republican governor. Why? Christie's record. He instituted an Internet sales tax, supported Common Core and liberal energy policies. Incredibly, Christie even backed Obamacare's Medicaid expansion," a narrator says against a backdrop of photos of Christie and President Obama. Watch the ad here:
The other spot, "Look at Me," highlights some of Christie's problems in his home state of New Jersey.
"When New Jerseyans look at Chris Christie, why do so many want to leave?" the narrator asks. He then lists the reasons: a high tax burden, slow job growth, and the indictment of two of Christie's aides for their involvement in "Bridgegate," the Fort Lee lane closure scandal. Watch the ad here:
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Tuesday, Rubio said that he had watched the ads, though he had nothing to do with producing them.
"These are serious policy disputes and there's nothing in those ads that is inaccurate -- it's the truth," Rubio said.
Christie had also commented on the ad earlier in an interview on Bloomberg Politics' "With All Due Respect" Monday.
"I guess I just wonder what happened to the Marco who so indignantly looked at Jeb Bush and said, 'I guess someone must have convinced you that going negative against me helps you,'" Christie said. "I guess that same person now must have convinced Marco that going negative against Chris Christie is what he needs to do."