Chris Christie Says Trump’s Lies Helped Incite Violence, But ‘I Wouldn’t Change My Vote’ For Him
In a special that aired on Monday night, Chris Christie told CNN’s Dana Bash that he doesn’t regret voting for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020, even as the former governor acknowledged Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol riot.
Christie addressed Trump’s extremely premature election night 2020 victory speech in which the then-president declared, “Frankly, we did win this election.”
“I felt absolutely sick to my stomach,” said Christie. “Physically stick to my stomach watching him stand behind the seal of the President of the United States in the East Room of the White House saying something that I knew at that moment he couldn’t prove was true. But he was saying it as if it was an absolute fact.”
The former governor noted that there’s no evidence the election was stolen.
“And he’s still saying it,” said Bash.
“Yes,” Christie replied.
“You called that speech ‘one of the most dangerous pieces of political rhetoric I have ever heard in my life.’ That’s a big statement.”
“Well, it is a big statement but it’s true, and all you need to know to back that up is to see how many people today still believe it.”
Bash asked Christie about criticisms against him claiming that, as a longtime supporter of Trump’s, he had enabled him.
“I think people who make those kind of accusations to somebody who’s trying to make the country better don’t understand what politics is all about and what government’s all about,” Christie responded. “Anytime I objected to the president’s conduct, either from a policy or personal perspective, I said it to him.”
She asked if he bears any responsibility for what happened after Trump was elected.
Christie explained he voted for Trump both times and, despite the fact Christie himself had just acknowledged Trump helped incite violence against the Capitol by spreading elections lies, he said he doesn’t regret it.
BASH: As somebody who helped him along the way. You helped him get to where he was.
CHRISTIE: I don’t consider myself so important that without my help Donald Trump wouldn’t have been president, wouldn’t have been able to do the things he did. That’s ridiculous. It was clear to me he would be the Republican nominee and we had a relationship. So I wanted to try to make him the best candidate he could be, and if he won the best president he could be. I don’t make any apologies for that. I was one very small part of the effort to help make him president so the responsibility that I’ll take is I voted for him twice. I admit that and I wouldn’t change my vote.
BASH: Even the second time?
CHRISTIE: No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t change my vote because so many things down there are happening now in the country from a policy protective to me are so long term bad for the country.
BASH: I have to follow up on that. Looking back, the fact democracy in your words was at such risk and is at such risk, isn’t having a policy debate a luxury when what is really a problem is the Constitution itself? Meaning, don’t you have to have the Constitution and democracy and the bones there in order to have the ability to have a debate about policy?
CHRISTIE: I think there — the two are indivisible. I don’t think that you can pick one over the other. I don’t think you ever should pick one over the other and I don’t think the founders would have wanted us to pick one over another. If you have a constitutional republic that is driving the constitutional republic off the road, that’s just as bad and you got to stand up against that, too. You’re asking me in retrospect who I would have voted for knowing everything I know today sitting here and I’m saying to you, I could not given what I stand for in my public life, what I’ve worked for in my public life, I couldn’t justify a vote for Joe Biden.
Later in the interview, Christie said of the Capitol rioters, “I don’t think they would have gone there if they thought the election had been fair. Right? If they thought the election had not been stolen, there would’ve been no reason for the rally.”
Watch above via CNN.
