Donald Trump privately knows that he lost the 2020 presidential election and was concerned about losing to Joe Biden in the leadup to it, according to Chris Christie, one of the former president's 2024 opponents.
Trump is currently the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination by a wide margin as he seeks to retake the White House after his loss to Biden in 2020. The former president has consistently expressed the false narrative that widespread voter fraud resulted in his loss, despite evidence never surfacing over the years and multiple courts dismissing his claim.
Trump leads a packed crowd of candidates for the nomination, most of whom have only ever received single-digit support in polls while he has often received upwards of 50 percent support. Among those other candidates is Christie, the former New Jersey governor who ran against Trump for the nomination in 2016 and briefly positioned himself as an ally in the early days of his presidency. Now, Christie has differentiated himself from the GOP pack with his willingness to go on the offensive against Trump directly, regularly deriding his poor electoral track record and mounting legal troubles during public appearances.
During a Sunday appearance on ABC News's This Week, Christie told host George Stephanopoulos that, despite his many claims, Trump knows that he lost in 2020, and in fact expressed worries about the possibility prior to Election Day.
"He was concerned before the election that he was losing, and I know that because he said it to me directly," Christie said. "So, he knows he didn't win, but his ego, George, won't permit him to believe that he's the only person in America outside the state of Delaware who's ever lost to Joe Biden."
In response to those comments, a spokesman for Trump had harsh words for the former governor in a statement provided to Newsweek on Sunday.
"Chris Christie lives in a perpetual fantasy land where he thinks he can be president," the statement read. "Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie wrapped in incoherent psychotic rage and he needs to get some professional help."
Former Pres. Trump “doesn’t believe he won” the 2020 election but his "ego" won't let him say otherwise, Chris Christie tells @GStephanopoulos.
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 16, 2023
“He was concerned before the election that he was losing. I know that because he said it to me directly.” https://t.co/rx621lkEWM pic.twitter.com/xdaICJdlLI
Christie's statement was in response to a question regarding news that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and husband of his eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, had testified before special counsel Jack Smith's grand jury investigating the former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election that led to the January 6, 2021, Capital riot. Reports indicate that Kushner reiterated his past comments that Trump genuinely believed his claims about voter fraud costing him the election.
This assertion, legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said on Saturday, is contradicted by past statements from former Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, and opens up the possibility of perjury charges against Kushner.
Updated 07/16/2023, 4:21 p.m. ET: This article was updated with a statement from a Trump spokesman.
