New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie skipped the funeral of Sean Cullen, a New Jersey State Trooper killed on March 7 in an automobile accident when responding to a car fire.
Instead of the March 14 funeral, Christie was on the campaign trail with presidential nominee Donald Trump.
This is the third New Jersey police funeral that Christie has missed due to the 2016 presidential election.
Christie has been repeatedly criticized for being an “absentee governor,” and the criticism was continued by none other than Trump, who took a shot at Christie while in Ohio campaigning against John Kasich.
“Your governor, Kasich,” Trump told a crowd at an Ohio rally. “If you look at him, and I’m being totally impartial, he goes to New Hampshire [and] he’s living in New Hampshire.”
“Where’s Chris? Is Chris around?” Trump asked. “Even more than Chris Christie, [Kasich] was there [in New Hampshire].”
Trump then found Christie in the audience.
“Right?” Trump continued adding, “I hated to do that but I had to make my point.”’
According to NJ.com, Christie spent 261 days outside of New Jersey, or about 72 percent of 2015 out of the state campaigning.
The Christie administration disputes those numbers, claiming to only have been out of the state for 190 days, and excludes the trips to neighboring Pennsylvania and New York.
Even so, that’s still more than half of the year not in New Jersey.
New Jersey voters and lawmakers, including Republican allies, have been openly critical of the governor after Christie endorsed Trump for president on Feb. 26.
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