Chris Christie slams Trump for declaring 2020 presidential election victory
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an ally of President Trump, blasted the commander-in-chief’s comments about claiming victory and threatening to ask the Supreme Court to halt more vote-counting.
Christie said there is no evidence to back Trump’s claim that Democrats are trying to fraudulently steal the election away from him.
“I talk tonight not as a former governor, but as a former US attorney. There’s just no basis to make that argument tonight. There just isn’t,” Christie told ABC News.
“The argument won’t even start in Pennsylvania until tomorrow, or Thursday or Friday,” Christie continued, pointing out that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended the deadline for accepting ballots for three days.
“I understand there could be an argument on that based on Pennsylvania law, but that argument is for later. Tonight, this was not the time to make this argument,” he said.
“There comes a point where you have to let the process play itself out before you judge it to have been flawed. I think by prematurely doing this, if there is a flaw in it later, he has undercut his own credibility in calling attention to that flaw,” Christie said. “So I think it’s a bad strategic decision, it’s a bad political decision.”
The election is coming down to the wire between Trump and Joe Biden, with neither candidate able to amass the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win.
They are also locked in tight elections in a number of other swing states — including Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump, in a White House speech early Wednesday, declared himself the winner and called for a halt to vote-counting.
“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. So our goal now is to ensure the integrity,” he said.
“We’ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list, OK?”
Biden, speaking in Wilmington, Del., said states must be able to continue counting ballots.
“We knew because of the unprecedented early mail-in vote that it was going to take a while. We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying votes is finished and it ain’t over until every vote is counted, every ballot is counted,” the former veep said.