Christie Won't Rule Out 2024 Presidential Run—Even Against Trump

NEW JERSEY - Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said Monday he might consider a second run at the White House, even if he has to go through Donald Trump to do so.

Speaking on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, Christie said that going up against Trump would not deter him from mounting a second presidential campaign. He first ran in 2016.

"I would not. No," Christie said, responding to whether Trump campaigning for another term would rule it out. "I would not rule it out, Hugh."

This is the latest in a series of breaks from the 45th president, who Christie says has been a friend for 20 years. After contracting COVID-19 at the White House in advance of the 2020 debates, Christie has gone an apology tour of sorts, decrying his lack of mask usage.

"I was wrong," Christie said in a statement released in October. "I was wrong to not wear a mask at the Amy Coney Barrett (Supreme Court nomination) announcement, and I was wrong not to wear a mask at my multiple debate prep sessions with the President and the rest of the team."

Last week, Christie appeared in an ad supporting masking up to protect public health. Christie posted the ad on Twitter, saying it will air across the nation.

"You know, lying in isolation in ICU for seven days, I thought about how wrong I was to remove my mask at the White House. Today, I think about how wrong it is to let mask-wearing divide us," Christie says in the ad.

In more recent weeks, Christie has been critical of the Trump campaign's reaction to losing the election. Christie told ABC's "This Week" host Martha Raddatz President Donald Trump and his legal team's strategy is an "absurd idea."

"The legal theory put forward by his legal team and by the president is an absurdity," Christie said in the interview. "And the reason why the Supreme Court didn't take it is because it's an absurd idea to think that any state, or any number of states, no matter how good they are, can challenge another state's right to run the election as they see fit. And also there's no evidence."

Christie, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump who helped prepare him for his first debate with President-Elect Joe Biden and has publicly defended Trump repeatedly over the years said last month that the conduct of the president's legal team is a "national embarrassment."

Trump's legal team, led by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, have spoken to the press and made many allegations, but have provided little to no proof – a fact cited by judges who have dismisses dozens of the team's cases in court. One of those allegations caught the attention of Gov. Phil Murphy.

"Mayor Giuliani's claim that Camden residents voted in Philadelphia is not only outrageous, but racist and blatantly false," Murphy said at the time. "On this one, I agree with Chris Christie that this guy is truly a national embarrassment."

This election year Trump lost the popular vote 74,223,755, or 49.9 percent, to Biden's 81,283,495 or 51.4 percent. But what has made this year's after action face more scrutiny is the continued assault by the Trump campaign legal team on the process.

As for the next presidential election, Christie told Hewitt he did not reserve the "Christie2024" domain name, noting that his site is ChrisChristie.com.

“So we’re going to keep that one,” he said, “and we’ll see where we go from here, Hugh.”

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