Chris Christie says Trump wants the GOP to be the 'party of me,' where 'everything has to be about him'

Chris Christie Brian Kemp — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, left, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp talk to the media at a campaign event in Canton, Ga., on May 17, 2022.
Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

Former Gov. Chris Christie says that former President Trump wants the GOP to be the "party of me."
Christie rejects such a development, arguing that the party must look to the future in order to win.
He came to Georgia to campaign for Trump foe Brian Kemp, who easily won his GOP gubernatorial primary this week.

While former President Donald Trump went all-in for ex-Sen. David Perdue in the recent Georgia Republican gubernatorial primary, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie backed incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp.

Kemp, who was elected in 2018 on a conservative platform and with the then-blessing of Trump, fought vigorously to win renomination as his party's nominee as he sought reelection to a second term — brushing aside complaints from Trump that the governor didn't help him enough during the 2020 election.

The governor, who has spent nearly four years signing conservative pieces of legislation into law, won the Tuesday GOP primary in a landslide, capturing over 73 percent of the vote, compared to nearly 22 percent for Perdue.

At one time, the thought of a Trump-backed candidate performing so poorly would have been unthinkable, but according to Christie — a former two-term Republican governor, ex-US attorney and onetime close ally of the former president — the party's focus on the future is long overdue.

"We have to be the party of tomorrow, not the party of yesterday," Christie told Politico earlier this week as he and other Kemp allies basked in their candidate's overwhelming victory against Perdue.

While most Republicans are still keenly aware that Trump still wields enormous influence within the party, they also have surmised that the former president is seeking to enact political revenge on onetime allies. Some view that strategy as unwise and disadvantageous to the GOP as it looks to the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election.

"But more important than that, what we have to decide is: do we want to be the party of me or the party of us?" Christie said. "What Donald Trump has advocated is for us to be the 'party of me,' that everything has to be about him and about his grievances.'"

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