Former New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie established his distance from former President Donald Trump during a weekend appearance on ABC’s This Week, where he insisted that the former president does, in fact, bear direct responsibility for the attack on the Capitol last year. Recently, Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence have been engaged in a rhetorical stand-off of sorts over the pressure campaign that Pence faced around the time of the Capitol attack to block the certification of Biden’s presidential election victory. Trump and allies of his like attorney John Eastman were behind that pressure, and on ABC, Christie — an on-again, off-again supporter of the ex-president — laid out the facts of what’s really going on here.
I will never understand why 10 more GOP Senators didn’t join with the 7 brave ones to convict Trump in Impeachment 2.0 to prevent him from holding office again (and a campaign account). It would have taken some time but it would have eventually neutered his power over the party.
— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) February 6, 2022
Recently, Pence stated at a Florida event associated with the conservative legal group known as the Federalist Society that Trump was wrong in his recent assertion that the ex-vice president could have “overturned the election” while presiding over the Congressional proceedings to certify the election, which is where Trump and others wanted the then-vice president to attempt to procedurally shut down the progression of the electoral process showing Joe Biden’s victory. Originally, Pence rejected the entreaties from the then-president to act, moving forward with the process. As Christie commented this weekend:
‘I think that the actions the vice president took on January 6 spoke loudly. And I’m glad he’s finally put words to it. I don’t know why it took him so long, but I’m glad that he did. And let’s face it, let’s call this what it is, January 6 was a riot that was incited by Donald Trump in an effort to intimidate Mike Pence and the Congress into doing exactly what he said in his own words last week, overturn the election. Now, he’s tried to do a cleanup on aisle one here in correcting that stuff, but it’s not going to change. He actually told the truth by accident. He wanted the election to be overturned. Donald Trump did respond to what the vice president said. And I think it’s kind of akin to the kid standing in the corner holding his breath. You know, it’s immature, and it’s beneath the office that he held.’
Watch Christie’s weekend comments below:
.@GovChristie says Jan. 6 “was a riot that was incited by Donald Trump” in an effort to intimidate then-Vice Pres. Pence and Congress.
“He wanted the election to be overturned.” https://t.co/AAG4Zr9ytk pic.twitter.com/9BqInL7fEV
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) February 6, 2022
Trump has asserted that deliberations in Congress over potential clarifications to the legal provisions governing the presidential election outcome certification process show that the power for the vice president to essentially overturn the outcome was there all along… but that’s not how it works. Trying to make the law clearer doesn’t mean that something is magically there that simply wasn’t. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to push attempted excusals for elements of what went on around January 6, and recently, he repeatedly insisted that he’d be inclined to issue pardons to rioters if he wins the presidency again. Even still, amid these issues there’s been no large-scale departure from Trump in the ranks of the Republican Party.
Former Pence chief of staff Marc Short (who's met w/ the 1/6 committee too) is on Meet the Press now – says Trump had "snake oil salesmen" advising him leading up to 1/6
— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) February 6, 2022
