‘Its Disgraceful’: Chris Christie Rips Trump’s ‘Continued Grift’ of Using Campaign Funds for Personal Legal Fees

Chris Christie called out his GOP presidential rival Donald Trump’s use of campaign funds to pay for personal legal fees and explained it because “he’s the cheapest person I’ve ever met in my life.”

The former New Jersey governor appeared with Kaitlan Collins on CNN Wednesday evening and hit fellow Republican presidential candidates but saved his harshest comments for Trump.

Collins asked her guest what he thought about Trump having “quietly begun diverting money that he is raising for his 2024 campaign into a political action committee that he has used?”

“It’s disgraceful,” Christie replied, “and it’s a continued grift.”

When pressed why he’s doing this, Christie added, “Because he’s the cheapest person I’ve ever met in my life. That’s why. And what he’s very good at, Caitlin, is spending other people’s money.

Collins: We have questions about your fundraising, but on Donald Trump’s fundraising, he has quietly begun diverting money that he is raising for his 2024 campaign into a political action committee that he has used, which we can see from filings for his personal legal fees. What do you make of that?

Christie: It’s disgraceful. It’s disgraceful. He’s going to middle class men and women in this country and they’re donating 15, 25, 50, $100 because they believe in Donald Trump and they want him to be president again. They’re not giving that money so he can pay his personal legal fees. And let’s remember something. He’s a billionaire. He’s a billionaire, self-professed billionaire. Why can’t he use his own money to pay his personal legal fees and not use money coming from the public? It’s disgraceful and it’s a continued grift. And look, the Trump family has been involved in grifting for quite some time. He was doing this in terms of the people who got paid out of this PAC before, whether it was Kimberly Guilfoyle or other members of the family. Jared Kushner, six months after he leaves the White House, gets $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. When Donald Trump had put him in a position to be in the Middle East. What was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East? We had Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo as secretaries of state. We’ll need Jared Kushner. He was put there to make those relationships, and then he cashed in on those relationships when he left the office. So what Donald Trump’s doing now is just a continuation of what he’s permitted his family to do over the entire course of his time as president.

Collins: Why do you think he’s not using his own money to pay for his legal fees?

Christie: Because he’s the cheapest person I’ve ever met in my life. That’s why. And what he’s very good at, Caitlin, is spending other people’s money. And if you look at his history in New Jersey through his….

Collins So think he’s misleading his voters, his supporters by…

Christie I think their supporters, you know, write a check to Trump for president. They think they’re paying for campaign expenses, not for personal legal expenses. This what happened to him, let’s say, with the documents case, had nothing to do with the campaign. At all. It’s a personal fault of his mistakes he made that he’s now being held to account for. It has to pay lawyers to defend them. The same thing with the Stormy Daniels case in New York. I think it was a ridiculous indictment to bring, but nonetheless, it’s based on his personal conduct of allegedly paying off Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet during an election. These are not things that the public should be paying for, and certainly not people who are supporting him for president and giving him the money thinking it’s going to be used to help forward his campaign when in essence, all he’s doing is using it to pay his own legal fees so he keep more money in his own pocket and keep running his jet and, you know, going back and forth between Bedminster and Merrill, not Mar-A-Lago.

Watch above via CNN.