Christie, Ramaswamy Spar Over Trump Indictments

Fox News moderators Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier asked the 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls to raise their hand if they would still support former President Donald Trump if he is convicted in a court of law.

While candidates Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Doug Burgum raised their hands to support Trump if he is elected as the Republican nominee and after looking around, Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence joined in raising their hands. Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson did not.

"Here's the bottom line. Someone's got to stop normalizing this conduct Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong. The conduct is beneath the office of President of the United States," Christie said prompting boos from the crowd.

"This is the great thing about this country. booing is allowed, but it doesn't change the truth. It doesn't change," Christie continued.

Ramaswamy fired back at the New Jersey governor, emphasizing his belief that Trump was "the best president of the 21st century."

"Christie, honest to God, your claim that Donald Trump is motivated by vengeance and grievance would be a lot more critical," Ramaswamy slammed Christie. "If your campaign were not based on vengeance and grievance against Donald Trump without an iota of vision for this country, they could just change the channel to MSNBC right now. But I'm not running for president of MSNBC. I am running for President of the United States. We're skating on thin ice and we cannot set a precedent where the party of power uses police force to indict its political opponents. It is wrong."

Christie praised former Vice President Pence for his decision to ignore trump's requests to block the certification of the 2020 election.

"Mike Pence stood for the Constitution," Christie said. "He deserves our thanks as Americans for putting his oath of office and the Constitution of the United States before personal, political and unfair pressure."

Deeper into the indictment debate, DeSantis contested that the legal woes of the former president shouldn't even be a topic of discussion because "Democrats will love that."

Baier reminded DeSantis that Trump's lead in multiple national Republican polls makes the topic relevant to the debate.

Each candidate was required to sign a loyalty pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee in order to appear on the debate stage.

Join The Messenger’s Politics team on the ground in Milwaukee for full coverage of the debate tonight on our site.