The introductions in last night’s GOP debate got very awkward

A little more than a week after Gov. Chris Christie made a controversial remark about mopping up flood water along the Jersey shore, Sen.

Chris Christie on Sunday morning defended his latest attack on GOP presidential rival Marco Rubio, saying the senator doesn’t have the experience to be president. Christie wasn’t through with Rubio, “And the fact is – the fact when you talk about the Hezbollah Sanctions Act that you list as one of your accomplishments you just did, you weren’t even there to vote for it. That’s not leadership, that’s truancy”.

“Maybe unlike Chris Christie, Marco thinks that fundamentally what this election is about is defeating Democrats in November”.

All week, Christie – trying to stay alive in this, his firewall state, has criticized Rubio, whom some establishment types have begun to embrace as the party’s 2016 golden boy. He repeatedly tried to make the same point about Obama, which gave Christie more and more chances to make the same point about Rubio’s stump speech. So when he was given repeated opportunities to bash Barack Obama and to bash the record of the Democratic Party, he took every single one of those opportunities.

Christie then said, “He gets very ugly when he gets off his talking points”.

Christie, observing Rubio’s repetition, then commented in wonderment: “There it is – there it is, the memorized 25-second speech. And I will tell you this, within the first 100 days that I am president, I will put that proposal to the Congress”. I don’t think it is. “We raised more money last night in the first hour of that debate than any other debate”, he said.

“You know what the shame is – you know what the shame is, Marco?”

Surging post Iowa, Rubio flailed in response.

SENATOR MARCO RUBIO: He didn’t want to go back. “As far as that message, I hope they keep running it and I’m going to keep saying because it’s true”. “You see, everybody, I want the people at home to think about this”, Christie said looking into the camera.