Republican presidential candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie criticized the recent decision to kick former President Trump off the Maine primary ballot under the 14th Amendment.
“[I]t makes him a martyr,” Christie said on CNN Friday. “You know, he’s very good at playing ‘Poor me, poor me,’ he’s always complaining. The poor billionaire from New York who’s spending everybody else’s money to pay his legal fees.”
On Thursday, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) said she had concluded the former president “over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power.” Bellows’ decision made Maine the second state to take such an action, after the Colorado Supreme Court last week via a 4-3 ruling.
What he should have said is this:
“On January 6, 2020 former President Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection against the United States. Under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution Section 3, Colorado, Maine, and every other State in the nation should permanently remove him from the ballot because he is disqualified from running for office. Sadly this action might actually endear him to his supporters even more, but it is still the right thing to do.”