Less than two weeks after he ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Chris Christie has made it clear he won’t yet endorse Donald Trump — even if the former president is given a third nomination by his party.
“No one will tell the truth about Donald Trump,” Christie told supporters after announcing his campaign was over. “No one will tell the truth about his divisiveness, his stoking of anger for his own benefit.”
The former New Jersey governor, who endorsed Trump in 2016 almost immediately after ending his own campaign for the presidency, was one of two among the eight GOP contenders in the first presidential debate who refused to raise his hand when asked if he would support Trump in the event, he became their party’s nominee and was convicted in one of his ongoing trials.
Since then Christie has sent out strong signals he will not support Trump in the fall under any circumstances, and was famously caught on a “hot mic” saying of remaining Trump nomination opponent Nikki Haley: “She’s going to get smoked.”
And that leaves Biden as the lone candidate who could stop the prospective Republican nominee Trump that Christie so abhors — and whose policies as president he supported.
As Allan Ryskind wrote in Newsmax (Jan. 6, 2024), “Most conservative Republicans, even those who dislike Trump, acknowledge his accomplishments as president: a dazzling economy, booming 401(k)s, and the lowest unemployment rate for Black and Hispanic people in recent history.
By unleashing the oil and natural gas industry, he made the nation energy independent, no longer having to depend on foreign nations for this critical wartime commodity.
He helped win over Black people with prison reform; long-term funding of Black colleges; and opportunity zones, whose Kempian purpose is to lift poor communities out of poverty through free-market principles.”
Republican leaders who spoke to Newsmax are furious at Christie for the position he takes on Trump as the former president looms as a likely nominee for his old position.
“Gov. Chris Christie ran as a Republican in the 2024 presidential selection process,” said former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R.-Mich., just elected state GOP chair of Michigan. “Governor Christie should endorse the eventual Republican nominee. Anything less would be disappointing and unacceptable.”
Hoekstra’s view was echoed by Lowman Henry, chief organizer of the annual Pennsylvania Leadership Conference that brings together Keystone State conservatives of all stripes.
“I believe Chris Christie had to sign a loyalty pledge to be included in the presidential debates that he would support the eventual Republican nominee,” said Henry. “He needs to honor that pledge.
“The bottom line is this is going to be a choice between Joe Biden’s failed presidency and an American renewal under President Trump and a Republican administration.
Once the voters have spoken in the primary process Chris Christie and all of the former candidates need to get onboard to elect a Republican president and Congress.”
Morton Blackwell, Virginia’s Republican national committeeman and senior member of the RNC, told Newsmax: “Because Chris Christie is consistently opportunistic, he has never had a following among principled conservatives. No doubt Christie bitterly resents the fact that Trump’s significantly conservative policies have earned for him a large and loyal core of conservative supporters.”
Should Christie persist in his “never Trump” stand when and if the 45th president becomes their party’s nominee, it is highly unlikely his own standing within the GOP will ever rise again.
