Christie says Harris should ‘refuse to engage’ with Trump’s attacks during debate

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Sunday advised Vice President Harris to steer clear of engaging in a “back-and-forth” with former President Trump and to instead dismiss any of his personal attacks during this week’s debate.

“If I were preparing Kamala Harris, I told her to write two words only on there: charm and disarm. That’s it,” Christie said on ABC News’s “This Week.” “She needs to look into that camera and charm the American people. She needs to show that she’s not going to be the 24-hour-a-day leaf blower noise that he is.”

“She’s got to go and show them there’s another way to lead. There is a way that you can be kind, that you can be smart and tough at the same time. That’s the charm,” he added. “Disarm … do not engage him in that stuff.

Christie, who ran an unsuccessful bid for the GOP presidential nomination last year, pointed to Harris’s answer when asked by anchor Dana Bash in a CNN interview last month about Trump’s suggestion that she “turned Black.”

“Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please,” Harris responded.

“That’s it?” Bash asked.

“That’s it,” Harris answered.

Christie said this was the “smartest answer” Harris gave during the interview.

“That’s what will get under his [Trump’s] skin. If she refuses to engage him in that back-and-forth, which Hillary failed at miserably because she wasn’t good at it and she engaged, don’t engage with him on that,” Christie said. “That increases his stature. You want to decrease his stature by being dismissive of him.”

A number of Trump’s allies and Republicans have advised him to avoid personal insults against Harris and focus on their policy differences. His appearances on the campaign trail have featured insults against Harris’s intelligence, mocking her laugh and questioning her racial identity.

Christie, who was involved in Trump’s debate prep in 2016 and 2020 before his fallout with the former president, claimed Trump “really doesn’t think he needs to prepare.”

“There were times when we would go, and debate prep would be scheduled. We’d go in to sit with him and he would just say, ‘No, I’m not doing it.’ And that would be it. And it just wouldn’t happen,” he said. “He believes that just whatever his gut instincts are, are what’s going to carry him.”

“So, he will be typically Donald Trump, which is, he’s going to go in there and wing it. And that’s why I think what Kamala Harris does in this debate is significantly more important than what Donald Trump does because he’s going to be him,” he added. “He’s just going to wing it. You’ve seen this show before. She’s the one that’s going to get the most attention.”

The presidential debate between Harris and Trump is slated for Tuesday in Philadelphia. ABC News will host the 90-minute debate, which will begin at 9 p.m. EDT.

The event comes as The Hill/Decision Desk HQ national polling index shows Harris ahead of Trump by nearly 4 percentage points as she strives to narrow the gap with the former president in key battleground states.