Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) raised the temperature against former President Donald Trump on Monday at an event in New Hampshire, claiming he “just can’t” back him again as president.
Christie, who has reportedly been seriously considering a run for president himself, sharply criticized the former president on Monday during a town hall at St. Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics in his first trip to the state this year.
“You know, Donald Trump said a couple of weeks ago, ‘I am your retribution.’ Guess what, everybody? No thanks. No thanks,” the former New Jersey governor said, trying to portray himself as someone who could run against him. “If I was going to pay somebody to be my retribution, I guarantee this, it wouldn’t be him.”
“Here’s why it wouldn’t be him, because he doesn’t want to be my retribution. That’s baloney,” Christie continued. “The only person he cares about is him. And if we haven’t learned that since Election Day of 2020 to today, then we are not paying attention.”
Christie, who ran in 2016, supported Trump in his first election after dropping out himself and backed the former president again in 2020. However, without Trump being an incumbent and there being an open primary, he seems to view the former president differently. Christie alluded to making his decision to run by June since the first scheduled debate is in August.
He also suggested that one of the only ways to defeat Trump in the primary is by having someone able to attack him on stage during the debates:
You better have somebody on that stage who can do to [Trump] what I did to Marco because that’s the only thing that’s going to defeat Donald Trump… And that means you’ve got to have the skill to do it. And that means you have to be fearless, because he will come right back at you. So you need to think about who’s got the skill to do that. And who’s got the guts to do it? Because it’s not going to end nicely. No matter what, his end will not be calm and quiet.
Additionally, during his trip, Christie told Axios that there was “no way” he would be able to help Trump win. He added, “Look, I just can’t. When you have the Jan. 6 choir at a rally, and you show video of it — I just don’t think that person is appropriate for the presidency.”
However, if Trump ends up being the nominee, he also noted that he could not support President Joe Biden, claiming that he and Trump are just “too old” and “out of touch with what’s going on in the world right now.”
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.