Chris Christie Says He Will Decide His Presidential Candidacy in ‘Next Couple Weeks’

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has not decided on another run for president yet, but he is testing the waters.

In an April 18 interview with Semafor editor-at-large Steve Clemons, the 2016 Republican presidential candidate revealed that he will make a decision on a potential campaign “in the next couple weeks.”

“RNC [Republican National Committee] is setting up some rules for the debates that are going to require certain milestones to be met by mid-August to qualify for the stage,” Christie noted.

“They’re talking about requiring 40,000 individual donors to qualify for the stage, so, you know, that takes a little time to do. And so, if you’re going to be serious about this—and I think you have to be on the stage to be serious about it—then you probably have to make a decision by May.”

To date, five Republicans have declared their candidacy for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, including former President Donald Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and businessman Perry Johnson.

Meanwhile, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina recently announced an exploratory committee, and speculation that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will enter the race continues to mount.

Christie, however, appeared undeterred by the expanding field of competition, noting that he had faced worse.

“This looks like a vacant field compared to what I dealt with in 2016,” he said. “In 2016, we had 17 candidates for the Republican nomination, and we had to have two separate debates because there were so many people. And even with the debates that I was in, there were 10 of us. It was a lot.”

A Shift in Perspective

In February 2016, Christie dropped out of the presidential race after a disappointing New Hampshire primary in which he finished sixth.

Two weeks later, he became the first establishment Republican to endorse then-candidate Donald Trump, whom he said had been a “good and loyal friend” to him for more than a decade.

Yet in recounting the story on April 18, he gave the impression that he supported Trump because he did not want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency.

“When anybody’s ever critical of my support of Donald Trump, I tell them, ‘Well, I made the decision that I didn’t want Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States,’” he said.

“You can agree or disagree with that, but my only two choices were those two.

“And let me say this, it’s not like I supported him from the beginning—I ran against him. I didn’t think he was the best choice for president. I thought I was, but that didn’t work out, so then we’re left with a choice. And I think the American people were disgruntled with that choice.”

While at one point, Christie counted himself among the 45th president’s supporters, according to the former governor, that support ended after the 2020 election.

“The morning after the election, after the president was done giving his speech where he said the election was stolen … I said, ‘That is beneath the office that he has held. You cannot stand up there and say the election was stolen when you have absolutely no facts to support it, and I cannot be supportive of this.”

Describing Trump’s assertions that the election was stolen as “lies,” Christie added, “To me, that’s where the line was crossed.”

Competition

Currently, Trump leads the Republican pack by a wide margin that has only grown wider since his recent indictment by a Manhattan grand jury on falsification of business records charges.

That case, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, allegedly relates to hush money payments made during the 2016 election cycle to women who claimed to have engaged in extramarital affairs with Trump, including adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

Weighing in on the matter on April 16, Christie, a former prosecutor, said: “As a prosecutor, I wouldn’t have brought the prosecution Alvin Bragg brought because I don’t think