Andrew Harnik/AP
- Eric Trump told Chris Christie to watch for evidence of widespread fraud on election night.
- Christie recalls his horror at Trump's claims of fraud and declaration of victory in his new book.
- "You know I'm a straight shooter," Eric texted Christie. "Just wait until you see what is popping up."
Eric Trump, former President Donald Trump's eldest son, texted Chris Christie on election night claiming evidence of mass voter fraud was "popping up," Christie writes in his memoir.
Christie, who advised the Trump 2020 campaign on debate prep, recalled the exchange and his experience on election night in his new book "Republican Rescue: Saving the Party from Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden," which was published on Tuesday.
Christie wrote that Trump's election night speech in which he prematurely declared victory while ballots were still being counted and said he would be "going to the Supreme Court" to secure himself the election was "one of the most dangerous pieces of political rhetoric I have ever heard in my life" and made him "physically sick to my stomach."
"Presidents just don't talk like that, certainly without presenting solid evidence. The damage done by that speech still reverberates across the country today," Christie wrote.
The former New Jersey governor and ABC News contributor was a member of the network's election night coverage panel moderated by George Stephanopoulos, and publicly chastised Trump for his speech on television.
Christie said there was "no basis" for his claims of widespread fraud and called Trump's presumptuous declaration of victory a "bad strategic decision" and "a bad political decision," adding, "and it's not the kind of decision you'd expect someone to make tonight who holds the position he does."
Christie heard from the president's son immediately after the segment when the show went to a commercial break, he wrote.
"You know I'm a straight shooter," Eric told Christie in a text message. "Just wait until you see what is popping up."
Christie recounted texting Eric back that he was also a "straight shooter" and "a friend for a long time," but still strongly disagreed with Trump's audacious claims of widespread election fraud.
"So if we have evidence, then it should be laid out at the same time we're making the charges. That's my point. The strategic decisions that have been made on how to communicate since the election night are wrong. He has a different responsibility as president," Christie wrote back. "If he lays out the evidence of fraud, it will outrage everyone, but you can't bring an indictment before you present the evidence, and that's what he did today."
In another book, "I Alone Can Fix It," authors Phillip Rucker and Carol Leonnig recounted how Eric "flipped out" and had a tantrum directed at the Trump campaign's election data analysts when Biden began gaining ground in the vote count.
"We pay you to do this," Eric yelled at staffers in the White House's Map Room, which was the Trump campaign's war room on election night, according to the book. "How can this be happening?"
Eric, who believed his father would win reelection with 322 electoral votes, was apparently befuddled by President Joe Biden cutting into Trump's vote lead as states counted more mail-in ballots throughout the night, Rucker and Leonnig wrote.
"The election is being stolen," Eric said that night, according to the book. "Where are these votes coming from? How is this legit?"
In the end, Biden won 306 Electoral College votes while Trump earned 232.
source https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-trump-told-chris-christie-he-had-evidence-of-voter-fraud-book-2021-11