Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said during an interview on Sunday that former President Donald Trump was the only Republican that President Joe Biden can beat in a general election and that the president would lose to any other Republican.
Christie made the remarks during an roundtable discussion on ABC News’ “This Week” when discussing how new polling has shown that the 34-count felony indictment returned by a Manhattan grand jury last week is starting to hurt Trump’s poll numbers after seeing an initial boost.
“No matter what he says and his people say, being indicted is not good for political candidate,” Christie said. “Like that’s just — you know, he can get short-term bump among certain parts of our own party. But in the end, it’s not good to be indicted.”
“Being indicted, the public does still look at that and say that’s not what should be happening to a national leader,” he said.
Christie said that the special counsel that the Biden administration tapped to lead the two federal criminal investigations into Trump is someone who is serious about getting convictions.
“I think when you bring over a war crimes tribunal prosecutor to be a special counsel, those are generally not known as low-key men and women,” he said. “I don’t know what Jack’s Smith will or won’t do, but that was not a compromiser that they brought over here. That was not somebody who they brought over to try to plea the case out.”
Christie said that Trump’s endorsements in the 2022 midterms hurt the Republican Party and will be something that damages him in the 2024 election.
“The Donald Trump endorsements and the awful candidates, whether it was Kari Lake or Herschel Walker or Tim Michels in Wisconsin or Mastriano in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Those were the candidates that lost and they were Donald Trump’s candidates.”
“I think Donald Trump is the only Republican [Biden] can beat,” Christie later added. “I don’t think he can beat any other Republican who gets nominated.”