Christie: ‘I think the whole race changed last night’

Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie on Sunday said Marco Rubio debate performance ended his hopes to win the GOP nomination.

{mosads}“I think the whole race changed last night,” Christie said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Because you know there was a march among some of the chattering class to anoint Senator Rubio. I think after last night, that’s over.”

At Saturday night’s debate, Christie accused Rubio of memorizing a pitch about President Obama’s preparedness for the job.

When Rubio repeated the line, Christie interrupted, “There it is. The memorized, 25-second speech.”

The New Jersey governor said voters can’t trust a first-term senator like Rubio to take on Democratic primary front-runner Hillary Clinton in a general election.

“You can’t trust Senator Rubio to be the nominee of this party, and that’s what I was saying last night,” he said. “We need someone who is tested and ready to go against Hillary Clinton.”

“She is a skilled debater,” he added. “She is an experienced Washington insider. And you’d better have somebody on there who can take her on.”

“Senator Rubio proved last night he can’t do that, so now let’s go to the next phase, and I’m ready to go.”