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Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told “Fox News Sunday” that his goal is to try to make sure Republicans get “back to winning again as a party.”
Christie, who ran unsuccessfully for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, argued that if Republicans stop looking backward and instead look forward, the party will win back the House of Representatives and Senate in 2022 and pave the way for 2024.
“We have to win first in 2022 before we ever consider 2024,” Christie stressed on Sunday, adding that “more importantly” Republicans need to provide Americans with a “positive outlook for what we want to do compared to the disaster that is the Biden administration.”
Christie also argued that “laying out a contrast to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris” and “laying out what’s wrong with what they’re doing and what’s right with our prescription” will lead to the GOP winning back the House and Senate in 2022 and many governorships. He went on to say that it will also place the party in “a great position for 2024.”
The former governor said he will consider running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but “won’t make any decision until 2022.”
Speaking with Fox News earlier this month, Christie urged his party to stop looking back to former President Donald Trump‘s 2020 election defeat and instead “move on and talk about issues that voters care about.”
Christie has been active so far this cycle in helping fellow Republicans seeking office or running for reelection. He serves as a co-national chair – along with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, the GOP’s primary organization to coordinate the party’s redistricting strategy and build resources for its legal defense.
He is also co-chair of the Republican Governors Association Victory Committee, “raising money for Republican governors and Republican gubernatorial candidates and traveling around the country to do that.”
“If we don’t win, the Democrats continue to govern and they are going to continue to lurch our country left and give government giveaways that we’ll probably never be able to take away in the future and will change this country forever,” Christie said Sunday. “It’s not what I want to see happen and I don’t think it’s what most people in this country want to see happen.”
Christie slammed President Biden’s performance on Sunday, saying the president and current administration have “failed miserably” to deliver on their campaign promise to unite the country.
“What everybody in America has seen over the last 10 months is he’s just simply not up to the job and his administration is not up to the job,” he said.
Christie also argued that Biden as gone “far left” on all of his policies and has “caved” to radicals.
“I mean this is like we elected Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren with the policies of this administration,” he continued.
Five years ago, the then-New Jersey governor’s presidential run crashed and burned after a disappointing and distant sixth-place finish in New Hampshire’s presidential primary, where Christie had placed all his chips. Christie quickly backed Trump, who crushed the rest of the field in New Hampshire, launching him toward the Republican presidential nomination and eventually the White House.
Now, nearly 10 months removed from the presidency, Trump continues to flirt with another White House run in 2024. Christie is one of the few other Republicans mulling a GOP nomination run who is comfortable discussing it publicly.
“Having run already, I’m not going to run for the experience. I’ve had the experience. If I run, I run because I think I can win, and I think I can make a difference,” Christie told Fox News earlier this month.
He went on to say he is in no rush to make any decision because “the people of New Hampshire, the people of Iowa, and most of the people in the country know me, so I don’t have to go through the introductory process. So I’ll take my time, I’ll be thoughtful about it.”
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Christie said he can picture a scenario where Trump does not run in 2024 depending “on what happens in Donald Trump’s life over the next couple of years and what he decides he wants to do,” adding that he “can see him running too.”
Christie praised Trump’s polices as “outstanding,” but advised that if he does run again he should look forward instead of continuing to lament the outcome of the 2020 election.
“Talking about this now is defeating for the Republican Party,” Christie warned
“Voters always want the next election to be about the future, not about the past and there’s plenty to talk about right now with the awful failures of Joe Biden in crime, in education, in taxes and spending, Afghanistan, other foreign policy issues like China and we should be talking about those things and laying out our prescriptions,” he said.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser and Robert Sherman contributed to this report.
