Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, has predicted that former President Donald Trump will end up signing the Republican National Committee's (RNC) loyalty pledge.
Christie made the prediction, according to the Washington Examiner, during an appearance on ABC's This Week.
For those unfamiliar with the situation, in order to participate in the upcoming Republican primary debate, the RNC is forcing Republican presidential candidates to take a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee.
Trump, however, has said that he will not take such a pledge. Read on to see why.
Host Jonathan Karl began by asking Christie whether he thinks that the RNC would not allow Trump to participate in the debate if Trump does not sign the pledge.
"I do. I do think they would," Christie replied. "I think that they are serious about wanting this pledge signed, and I do think they would keep Donald Trump off the stage if he chose not to sign the pledge."
Christie, who made it clear that he is also against the pledge, continued by alluding to 2016. Christie said that Trump took a similar tactic - first, refusing to sign the pledge and then going on to sign it. Christie said that he expects Trump to do the same thing here.
"I would not be the least bit surprised if sometime around Sunday or Monday of next week that he signs the pledge, and he shows up on the stage on Wednesday," Christie said. "He might not also, but I would not be the least bit surprised if he did."
Overall, however, Christie argued that Trump's whole point is to keep the attention on himself. And, in this regard, Christie said that Trump is "doing pretty well."
The first Republican primary debate is scheduled to take place in a little over a week, and, thus far, it is not clear whether or not Trump will participate. Trump has argued that, given his massive lead in the polls, there is not much point.
Trump recently said:
You look at the debate, and they want you to debate, but you're debating — it's not really fair — somebody like Asa Hutchinson, who's polling at zero percent, will ask me nasty questions. Somebody like Chris Christie is falling at 1%, and he's going to ask me nasty questions and others, too. Why would you do that when you're leading by so much?
Trump has also recently said, plainly, that he will not sign the pledge required to participate in the debate.
Trump said.
I wouldn’t sign the pledge. Why would I sign a pledge if there are people on there that I wouldn’t have? I wouldn't have certain people as, you know, somebody that I endorse. So they want you to sign a pledge. I can name three or four people that I wouldn't support for president. So right there, there's a problem right there. There's a problem.
We'll find out soon enough whether Trump sticks with what he is saying here or whether he will sign the pledge and participate in the debate.
