Chris Christie says assassination attempt hasn’t changed who Trump is ‘fundamentally’

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said former President Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention is evidence that the assassination attempt on his life has not changed who Trump is as a man.

“It doesn’t change, fundamentally, who he is,” Christie told the hosts of ABC’s The View on Friday. “He’s 78 years old, and at that age, it is, at least in my human experience, infrequent to find a 78-year-old who changes the core of who they are.”

Any hopes that Trump would have a change of heart following Saturday’s assassination attempt were squashed when the former president began speaking after accepting the Republican presidential nomination, according to Christie.

“The people who tried to meet the moment were his staff who wrote that speech,” he said. “When you read that speech, you read just the text of it. It came close to meeting the moment, but more than a third of what he said last night was ad-libbed, and all the ad-lib was back to what he normally does.”

Christie also highlighted the first 15 minutes of Trump’s address and alleged the former president “hated what he was saying.”

“He hated it. He doesn’t believe it, but he knew he had to say it,” according to Christie. “It was like watching the media coverage the first three nights. I wonder if every network correspondent had taken drugs. They’re like, ‘Look at him in the audience. He looks more solemn. He looks as if he’s changed.”

Trump is an “actor,” according to Christie, suggesting he knew the camera was going to focus on him.

“It’s when he opens his mouth that the acting becomes more difficult,” he said. “So, I think, quite frankly, the media this week completely failed the American people. They bought hook, line, and sinker all of the garbage that the Trump campaign was leaking out to them.”