Right before Chris Christie announced he was ending his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday, the politician said that rival Nikki Haley is “gonna get smoked” when she goes up against Donald Trump.
Christie did not realize his mic was live and that his comments were going out on a livestream, according to The Daily Beast.
“She’s gonna get smoked,” Christie told longtime supporter Wayne MacDonald. “You and I both know it, she’s not up to this.”
He told MacDonald that he’d been outspent by Haley, although he didn’t mention her name.
“We know we’re right, but they don’t wanna hear it. We couldn’t have been any clearer, we couldn’t have worked any harder… And look, she’s spent $68 million so far, just on TV… and we’ve spent 12. I mean, who’s punching above their weight?”
Christie was telling MacDonald that Ron DeSantis called him and was “petrified that I would…” before the sound was cut.
Both DeSantis and Trump jumped at the chance to echo Christie’s dismissal of Haley:
“I agree with Christie that Nikki Haley is ‘going to get smoked.’” DeSantis wrote on X.
Over on Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, “I hear Chris Christie is dropping out of the race today — I might even get to like him again! Anyway, he was just caught on a hot mic making a very truthful statement.”
The livestream video has since been taken down by YouTube, but the audio has been widely shared on social media.
Last week, Christie said on “The View” that he also doubted Trump’s chances of winning, given all of the former president’s many criminal indictments.
“With him, every day there’s a new legal ruling,” Christie told host host Alyssa Farah Griffin. “And, at some point, Republican voters are gonna get practical, I think, and say he can’t win.”
