The publisher of a New Hampshire newspaper that endorsed Chris Christie for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination alleged Friday that the New Jersey governor once promised he’d never support Donald Trump, a jarring revelation in light of Christie’s Trump endorsement.
New Hampshire Union Leader publisher Joe McQuaid said he received a phone call from a tipster on the day after the Republican primary in the Granite State alleging that Christie would endorse Trump.
Considering the paper’s vocal opposition to Trump’s candidacy, and considering that it had just endorsed Christie before the New Hampshire primary, the tip came as a big shock, McQuaid recalled.
So he called the governor to set things straight.
“I sent a message off to Gov. Christie and he called me right back and I told him what I’d heard, and he said ‘No, no, I would never do that,'” McQuaid told Politico in an interview. “[Christie] told me to tell the other guy to ‘take his head out of his ass’ for saying he would support Trump.”
Christie endorsed Trump Friday morning.
“I’ve been on that stage,” the failed 2016 presidential candidate said Friday during a Trump press conference. “I’ve gotten to know all the people on that stage. And there is no one better prepared to provide America with the strong leadership that it needs both at home and around the world than Donald Trump,” Christie said at a joint press appearance in Texas alongside Trump.
The 2016 dropout also said that Trump was the “clear standout” in a GOP debate held Thursday evening in Texas, adding that the businessman is “the person who will do exactly what needs to be done to make America a leader around the world again.”
Christie also said Trump is the best-suited to take on Hillary Clinton, should she win the Democratic Party nomination.
“I can guarantee you that the one person that Hillary and Bill Clinton don’t want to see on that stage come September is Donald Trump,” the governor said. “They know how to run the standard political playbook against junior senators and run them around the block. They do not know the playbook with Donald Trump because he is rewriting the playbook.”
McQuaid, who once compared Trump to the villain from the “Back to the Future” series, Biff Tannen, said Friday he’s deeply disappointed in Christie.
“I’m now suspecting him of being involved in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping,” he told Politico. “It’s like Romney says about Trump and his taxes. I think there’s something there. Christie hasn’t come clean.”
