Christie: DeSantis is ‘big government Republican’

In an interview on CNBC Tuesday, Chris Christie called GOP presidential rival Ron DeSantis a “big government Republican.”

“I’m not a big government Republican, like Governor DeSantis is, who thinks that every time you disagree with a position that a corporation takes, you should take punitive action against them,” Christie said on CNBC’s “Last Call.”

Christie’s comment seemed to call out the Florida governor’s recent disputes with corporations like Disney. After Disney voiced opposition to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, DeSantis signed legislation nearly a year later to end the company’s power over the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the large swath of land that Disney has owned and governed for a while. Disney later sued DeSantis and other Florida officials in April saying that DeSantis retaliated against them for their stance against the bill.

Christie also knocked DeSantis over his state’s spending. The former New Jersey governor said there was a large difference in the amount of spending by the states while both of them held office.

“Our spending in New Jersey went up an average of 2 percent a year, for all eight years that I was there,” Christie said. “Just a little over 16 percent in eight years. You compare that to Florida, for instance, in the last five years spending has gone up 30 percent.”