Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, told Newsmax Wednesday that Republican voters need to recognize that former President Donald Trump “can’t beat Joe Biden” because “we can’t afford to lose” the next election.
“I endorsed Donald Trump in 2016,” Christie said during an appearance on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.” “I chaired his transition. I worked for him, I chaired his opioid commission. I'm not somebody who was a never Trumper. But I want to beat Joe Biden. When you look at what we need to do here, we can't afford to lose to Joe Biden again. We simply can't, because what he's doing to the country is just irreparable if we give him another four years.”
Trump is currently facing criminal charges in four separate cases and his legal woes are a large part of his electability problem, according to Christie.
“He is going to be sitting in a courtroom for all of March and most of April on criminal charges,” he said. “He's out on bail in four different jurisdictions. I mean, think about that. As a former prosecutor, that we have the front-runner for our nomination out on bail in four different jurisdictions. And, let's face it: whether you agree with the charges or you don't, they’re a reality we now have to deal with.”
Christie said he also has a huge problem with the former president’s behavior on Jan. 6, 2021, during the breach of the U.S. Capitol building.
“His conduct on Jan. 6 was reprehensible,” he said. “His lying about the election being stolen. … There's not arguments on both sides, because when you incite people, as he did that day, and you see what the result is, he had another chance.
“Even if he didn't intend for them to be violent, he saw them become violent, and he sat by and did nothing for three hours, watched it on television from the White House and did nothing to get people to stop it,” he continued. “In my view, that's beneath the conduct of someone who's been honored to have the presidency.”
When asked about his national poll numbers and the fact that he hasn’t yet figured out how to take Trump out of the race, Christie said he isn’t concerned.
“People haven’t really focused on this race yet,” he said. “People are on summer vacation. We're just ending that this weekend. We're going to start to focus on this stuff now. By the way, national polls, as someone who has done this for a long time, are useless because we don't have a national primary. If we had a national primary, they might matter. But I’m at 14% in New Hampshire.”
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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