‘He thought he lost’: Trump’s former adviser Chris Christie says even the president doesn’t believe his own election lies

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has advised Donald Trump in the past, said even the president doesn’t believe his own lies about the 2020 election being stolen from him.

Christie, who has emerged as a Trump critic, said at an event Monday for the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School that the president’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of former President Joe Biden were “make-believe.”

“The crap that Donald Trump put out there about the 2020 election is fiction. It’s make-believe,” the Republican politician said. “And by the way, I was there in 2020. He doesn’t even believe it. He didn’t believe it. He thought he lost. And he was afraid he was gonna lose all during that fall.”

The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.

Trump began sowing doubt about the integrity of the 2020 election months before Election Day. In August 2020, Trump claimed mail-in ballots were “a very dangerous thing for this country, because they’re cheaters,” adding that they were “fraudulent in many cases.”

To this day, Trump publicly maintains his baseless claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent and has attacked mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections. That’s despite reports he and his family recently used the method to cast ballots in a special election in his new home state of Florida.

In a legally questionable move last week, Trump issued an executive order banning the U.S. Postal Service from sending absentee or mail-in ballots to any voter who does not appear on a list of confirmed U.S. citizens he has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to collect.

When asked at the Harvard event whether the country would have “fair and equal” elections this November and in 2028, Christie insisted, “We’ve never not had fair and equal elections, so we will have them again.”

Christie endorsed Trump during the 2016 presidential election after suspending his own bid. He backed Trump again during the 2020 election, but then later turned against him.

Christie announced he was running for president again in June 2023, saying he was “wrong” about Trump in a CNN interview at the time. He dropped out early on in the race.

Now, Christie appears regularly on ABC News’ This Week to offer his political analysis, often criticizing Trump.

The former governor accused the GOP of having “no principles” during Monday’s event.

“Even for people who agree with some of the stuff the president is doing, if you’re really honest with yourself, you know it’s not based on principle,” Christie said.

“He wakes up every morning and tries to figure out what is the best thing for him to do in his self-interest that day, and that day only,” he added.