Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says that Donald Trump’s ego may never recover from the blow dealt to him by Joe Biden in 2020.
In an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday the former Trump ally mocked his fellow 2016 contender over a photo recently posted by the president showing him behind a large, wooden desk at Mar-a-Lago that bears striking resemblances to the massive Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
Mr Christie said that the president’s choice of decoration showed that Mr Trump still needed to think of himself as commander-in-chief, which he argued was the underlying reason why he and his team had held on to documents, including classified materials, rather than turn them over to the National Archives. The former president remains under investigation by the Justice Department as a court-appointed special master reviews hundreds of documents seized from his home.
“He can’t believe that he’s not president,” Mr Christie said.
“He needs to display to everyone down at Mar-a-Lago ... that he still has some of those trappings,” said Mr Christie. “The replica Resolute Desk in Mar-a-Lago and all the rest of those things that are assuaging his disappointment and his disbelief that he's not the president anymore.”
It’s a brutal critique of the temperament and personality of the man whom Mr Christie once sought to serve under in the early days of the Trump administration when he was widely known to have pursued an appointment to the role of attorney general.
Mr Christie advised Mr Trump on the latter’s 2016 campaign following the governor’s own withdrawal from the race. He would later go on to support the second impeachment of the president in 2021 following the attack on the US Capitol.
He has left open the possibility about seeking the GOP nomination for president in 2024 as well, which would set him up for a likely rematch against Mr Trump in the primary.
