In a recent interview, Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie hit his GOP rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio as unfit for taking the U.S. government’s top job.
Christie, who has seen his support grow recently in early primary state New Hampshire, said Cruz harmed the country’s fight against terrorism by voting to roll back some of the government’s power to seize the phone records of U.S. citizens without a warrant.
“You can’t, in these dangerous times, take tools away from the government, and he’s made the country weaker,” Christie said in the interview, referring to a vote Cruz made in June.
National security has surfaced as a top issue in the campaign for the nomination, in light of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.
Christie compared Rubio to the current president.
“He’s not ready to be president. He’s a first-term U.S. senator. We just went through that,” Christie said. “You can’t do on-the-job training with the presidency.”
Despite growing support in New Hampshire, Christie, a second-term governor in New Jersey, is still considered a long shot for the White House. He’s polling in third place in New Hampshire, according to the RealClearPolitics average of state polls, with 10 percent support.
Front-runner Donald Trump is polling at 28 percent.
