Chris Christie evades question on whether he will lie on RNC pledge

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Sunday skirted a question about whether he intends to say he’ll support the eventual 2024 Republican nominee for president — whether true or not — in order to make it to the GOP debate stage.

During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Jake Tapper played a clip in which former Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tx.), a fellow 2024 contender, emphasized he “can’t lie” and pledge to back the eventual nominee, who may be former President Donald Trump.

Tapper then asked Christie if he plan on lying to make the debate stage, alluding to the ex-governor’s public assertion that he won’t vote for Trump, 77, again.

“Well I won’t see Will Hurd on the debate stage. That’s okay by me. The fact is, we’ve got to change our party and change our country,” Christie replied.

“We had these debate pledges eight years ago. And all of us signed them. Then we got on the debate stage and we were asked to reaffirm them. Donald Trump refuse to raise his hand,” he added, noting that Trump wasn’t penalized for the lie.

Christie, has publicly vowed to “take the pledge in 2024 just as seriously as Donald Trump took the pledge in 2016.”

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has been adamant about getting 2024 aspirants to sign the pledge, seeking to avert party disunity and a third-party split.

Christie’s campaign claims it already cleared the 40,000 unique donor threshold to make it to the debate, which is slated for Aug. 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He appears poised to clear the polling hurdle as well, given his 2.6% standing in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate.

The loyalty pledge is the one sticking point.

Christie has made taking down Trump his holy mission in the 2024 GOP primary, assailing his onetime friend for peddling lies about the election and more.

“He’s liar and a coward,” Christie said of Trump during the CNN interview, when asked about the former president’s claims that he considers the indictment against him a “great badge of honor and courage.”

Speaking at the Turning Point Action convention on Saturday, Trump told the crowd: “Every time the radical left Democrats, Marxists, Communists and Fascists indict me, I consider it to be a great badge of honor and courage. I’m doing it for you. I’m being indicted for you. Better me than you, right?”

But Christie shot back: “He’s not getting indicted for anyone other than because of his own conduct.”

Christie has also previously cast himself as a truth-teller.

“I think the best things about my personality is that I’m honest, I’m direct, and I care,” he told Piers Morgan during a recent interview.

Christie has long indicated he views the debates as his best opportunity to dispatch the frontrunner, given his iconic exchange with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in the 2016 debates.

But Trump and his team have actively dangled the prospect of skipping the first two GOP debates, rendering the likelihood of a showdown between the blunt-talkers uncertain.

Trump was indicted by the Justice Department last month on 37 counts related to the mishandling of government documents. He is also facing a 34-count felony indictment in the Manhattan District Attorney’s “hush money” case. He has pleaded not guilty.