Former New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie was booed Friday at the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, DC after criticizing former President Donald Trump.
Christie, who launched his 2024 presidential campaign in New Hampshire earlier this month, was attempting to explain why he entered the GOP primary fray when the conservative crowd started to jeer him.
“I’m running because [Trump’s] let us down. He has let us down because he’s unwilling — he’s unwilling to take responsibility for any of the mistakes that were made and any of the faults that he has and any of the things he’s done, and that is not leadership everybody. That is a failure of leadership,” Christie said, sparking the ire of many in the audience.
“You can boo all you want,” the former governor shot back. “But here’s the thing. Our faith teaches us that people have to take responsibility for what they do. People have to stand up and take accountability for what they do.”
The line drew a smattering of applause.
The 60-year-old former two-term governor is embarking on his second White House bid.
In 2016, Christie endorsed Trump, 77, after dropping out of the race following a sixth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary.
Christie then became an adviser to the former president ahead of the 2020 election before breaking with Trump over his stolen election claims.
He has since become a vocal critic of the 45th commander-in-chief.
“And as soon as I’ve started to be critical, after all of that, after he offered me White House chief of staff, now what he does is call me names, and belittle me,” Christie said of the 2024 GOP primary front-runner on Friday.
The former New Jersey governor is polling just above 2%, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls.
Trump is scheduled to speak at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference on Saturday night, where he’s expected to get a warmer reception than Christie.
When a member of the audience shouted, “We love Trump” during Christie’s speech, the former governor responded by saying: “You can love him all you want. But I will tell you that doing those kinds of things makes our country smaller.”
Asked about the booing, Christie told reporters outside the venue that “we can’t pretend that Donald Trump is a man of character.”