Chris Christie Slams Trump, Says Founders ‘Rolling in Their Graves’ to See a ‘Felon’ GOP Candidate

Republican contender Chris Christie is openly slamming his GOP rival, former President Donald Trump.

Rival candidate and former governor of New Jersey Chris Christie claimed on CNN on November 15 that the founding fathers would be "rolling in their graves" to know that Trump would have a real chance of winning the presidency even if he is found guilty of significant crimes. Christie told Jake Tapper on The Lead that America's founding fathers would not have imagined a convicted criminal could run for president.

Christie claimed that if they had, they would have expressly prohibited convicts from holding the office of president, per Raw Story. “If they knew that anyone would have had the audacity, as a felon — which Donald Trump will be, come this spring — to run for president, and that other people running for the office would be willing to support someone like that, they would have added, ‘You can’t be a convicted felon,’ to ‘age 35’ and ‘natural-born American citizen,’ as requirements for the presidency.”

When talking about Trump's two main competitors in the GOP, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Christie brought up a query that the moderators had asked during the first debate. “Remember, both of them raised their hand on the stage in the first debate and said they would support [Trump] even if he’s a convicted felon. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin are rolling in their graves,” Christie said.

The former governor of New Jersey continued slamming Haley and Ron DeSantis for their support of Trump, who is accused of 91 felonies in four different criminal proceedings. The allegations cover a wide variety of alleged offenses, including attempting to rig the election, knowingly holding onto information related to national security, and fabricating financial records about purported payments of hush money before the 2016 election.

“To say that you could be the rightful heir of the legacy of Washington and Adams and Lincoln and FDR, as someone who’d say I will support a convicted felon, that gives me grave concerns, Jake, about their judgment and whether it’s just nothing more than craven politics,” he said.

Replying to the question of who of Haley and DeSantis would make a better president, Christie stated he was "not ready to make that call yet." It was "really very discouraging to me," he continued, to hear Haley claim that Trump was the right president for the right moment during the most recent debate.

Christie, who is quite far behind Trump, says he doesn't just want to be second, he wants to beat Trump. "One last thing, you can't beat him unless you try to beat him," said Christie. "They're continuing to cuddle up to the guy. They're trying to come in a very respectable second. I don't think that's the way to run any race, and I'm not going to run this one that way."