Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said former President Donald Trump "left" him rather than Christie leaving Trump after the 2020 election.
Christie said he supported Trump because he believed he would be a better president than Hillary Clinton but that he stopped supporting Trump after election night in 2020 while speaking with Christiane Amanpour on CNN.
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“I didn’t leave Donald Trump, Christiane. He left me — when he stood there on election night 2020 behind the seal of the president in the East Room of the White House and said the election had been stolen when he had absolutely no evidence to support that. We know now that was a complete lie,” Christie said.
"When he did it that night, I was on ABC doing commentary, and I said that night that I cannot support someone who would make the American people believe that the election they just participated in was stolen when he had no evidence to support it," Christie added.
Christie also touted two recent polls which show him neck and neck with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in New Hampshire but with both candidates still trailing Trump. He said he hopes to climb further in the polls in the Granite State past DeSantis to make it a one-on-one race between himself and Trump.
"That's the first step for me, is then to set this up as a race between me and Donald Trump in New Hampshire. If we do that, I believe we will beat Donald Trump in New Hampshire, and if we do, we're gonna show the emperor has no clothes, that Donald Trump, who many people thought was the inevitable nominee, will not be. And then I believe then I will be the nominee of the Republican Party, and I will defeat Joe Biden," Christie said.
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Christie is one of several GOP candidates who will face off in the Republican presidential primary debate on Aug. 23. Trump has not said whether he will participate in the debate in Milwaukee.
The former New Jersey governor is currently in seventh, with 2.3%, in the national polls for the GOP nomination, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Trump leads the field with 53.7%, followed by DeSantis with 15.7%.