Let’s get this out of the way: Nobody likes Chris Christie, either. I mean, he’s not Donald Trump, but he is pretty despicable. He will forever be known by the picture of him lounging on the beach he closed to the public during the pandemic.

But one thing he’s not is afraid of a fight. And he’s been trying to pick one with Donald Trump for months, with no success.

It could be argued that, while Christie is a blue-ribbon douchebag, he is likely the best candidate to face Trump in a debate, if not the entire primary. Ron DeSantis keeps proving that even though hardcore right-wingers like his policy, he’s crap at campaigning. Chris Christie is terrific at campaigning.

Nobody is better at campaigning, however, than Donald Trump. And that’s because he sets all the terms, and his voters and the media let him.

No other candidate for president could simply refuse to participate in official debates and still enjoy the kind of lead Trump has in this primary. He doesn’t need policy. He has aggrieved racists and bigots who would vote for him if he mugged an old lady.

Now Christie is accusing Trump of hiding behind the Secret Service to get out of being confronted on terms he can’t set.

“His campaign is using the Secret Service to keep people away,” Christie told CNN. He went on to describe trying to carry out his end of a dare from September to simply show up at one of Trump’s public events and call him out in front of his voters.

“I’ve tried. I tried in New Hampshire,” Christie said. “I was shut out of the building in New Hampshire the day he registered for the ballot. His campaign closed the entire statehouse along with the Secret Service and said ‘Only people invited by the Trump campaign could go into the building.'”

This sounds exactly like something Trump would do. He has to know that Christie is hunting him down for a debate, and if he weren’t a coward, he’d take him up on it.

But as former governor Christie said, “Unless you’re willing to kiss his rear end, you can’t get anywhere near him. That just shows how afraid he is of seeing me face-to-face and confronting his record and his failure on behalf of the country.”