Christie rips Ramaswamy as ‘drunk driver’ on debate stage

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie ripped entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy after Wednesday’s fourth GOP debate, likening his performance to that of a “drunk driver.”

Christie said Ramaswamy and the two other candidates, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, yelled at each other on the stage in Tuscaloosa, Ala., because they have “nothing substantively to say that matters.”

“I mean, lets face it. If you look at their performances last night, Vivek Ramaswamy is a drunk driver on the debate stage,” Christie said on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday. “You never know where he’s going, what he’s going to do.”

Christie doubled down on his attack against the other candidates, saying they gave “pre-screened” and “canned” lines. He said DeSantis gives memorized answers and looks like “he’s relieved that he actually got it out of this mouth.”

On stage, the former New Jersey governor notably defended Haley from Ramaswamy’s attacks after the entrepreneur questioned her “basic intelligence,” calling his comments “garbage.” Christie countered that she is “a smart, accomplished woman.”

Still, he had criticism for the former governor of South Carolina on Thursday, claiming she looked like “somebody who just wanted it to be over.”

“If you think what happened on the stage is hard last night, wait till you sit in the Oval Office and you have to deal with the attack on Israel, deal with the war in Ukraine, deal with runaway inflation, deal with the issues that we have on our southern border,” he said.

Christie, who is lagging in polls compared to the other candidates and the front-runner, former President Trump, attempted to bolster his performance by saying the other candidates avoided questions.

“What I think I tried to show last night was that you need an adult; you need someone who’s gonna look at you and tell you the truth and answer your questions,” he said.

The Hill has reached out to Ramaswamy’s campaign for comment.