Christie Joins Chorus of Trump Supporters Disavowing President

(Bloomberg) -- Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a longtime ally of Donald Trump, joined in the condemnation of the president over his role in encouraging the protests that led a violent mob to storm the U.S. Capitol this week.

“The president’s conduct the past eight weeks, since the election, is beneath the office he holds, and this is coming from a guy who’s been his friend for 20 years,” Christie told Bloomberg Radio on Friday. “For the president there has to be consequences.”

Christie, a former U.S. attorney, didn’t elaborate on the consequences, besides saying that he was “confident the appropriate authorities will be looking at that to make a determination.”

He said the president’s behavior caused Republicans to lose control of the U.S. Senate with Tuesday’s Georgia run-off elections going to Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. They defeated the Republican candidates, Senator Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

Christie becomes the latest prominent Republican to disavow Trump, whose steadfast refusal to concede his loss to Joe Biden prompted thousands of his supporters to gather in Washington on Wednesday as the two houses of Congress prepared to certify Biden’s victory in the Electoral College vote.

He added that he hoped that the remaining members of Trump’s cabinet -- two resigned on Thursday -- should take an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution and remain vigilant about the president’s actions.

“If they see anything they believe violates the constitution, they need to sound the alarm and if they do, the country will take the right steps,” Christie said. But all other efforts to remove him from office “is a professorial discussion because whatever they want to do, it’s not going to get done anyway.”

He added that there was not enough time to either invoke the 25th Amendment or impeach the president before his term runs out on Jan. 20.