Chris Christie denounces Donald Trump
Eight Republican candidates for the party’s nominee in the 2024 election battled it out on stage at the first debate of their presidential campaigns.
With the notable absence of Donald Trump hanging over proceedings, the event, hosted by Fox News and moderated by presenters Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, nevertheless went ahead.
In an act of counter-programming, Mr Trump instead sat for an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired on X at the same time.
Running in second place to the former president, many assumed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would draw fire in the absence of the frontrunner. Instead, that role fell to his apparent surrogate entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy who even referred to Trump as the greatest president ever.
There were heated confrontations between him and former president Mike Pence, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, over his lack of political and foreign policy experience.
Out of the eight candidates, Mr Christie, Ms Haley, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson were the only candidates to directly attack former president Trump. There was broad consensus that Mr Pence had acted correctly on January 6 in defending The Constitution.
