Christie says 2024 Republicans afraid to call out Trump: ‘It’s like he’s Voldemort’

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Thursday criticized the field of current and potential 2024 Republican presidential candidates for being afraid to call out former President Trump.

“It’s like he’s Voldemort,” Christie said at a town hall at New England College in Henniker, N.H., according to USA Today. “You’re not going to beat someone by closing your eyes, clicking your heels together three times and saying there’s no place like home.”

The onetime Trump ally, who is considering a 2024 White House run of his own, has sought to distinguish himself from other GOP candidates with unsparing attacks on the former president.

“He failed us as president based on what he himself told us in 2015, in 2016, what he would do when he became president,” Christie said at Thursday’s event. “He failed us as a president on the promises he made to us.”

“He undermined our democracy. And the only reason he undermined our democracy was because he was pissed,” he added. “He undermined our democracy because he was angry we didn’t reelect him.”

While most other current and potential GOP candidates have avoided laying into the former president for fears of later deterring his supporters, Christie told Politico earlier this week that he doesn’t think it’s a damaging primary tactic.

“I don’t believe that Republican voters penalize people who criticize Trump,” the former New Jersey governor said. “If you think you’re a better person to be president than Donald Trump, then you better make that case.”

Christie is not the first person to draw a comparison between Trump and the villain of the Harry Potter franchise. 

Author J.K. Rowling said in December 2015 that “Voldemort was nowhere near as bad” as then-presidential candidate Trump, while lead actor Daniel Radcliffe said in September 2016 that Voldemort was more “ideologically pure” than the future president.

“My thing on Trump is that he feels like more of an opportunist — like I don’t know how much of this stuff he’s saying he actually, really, really believes,” Radcliffe said at the time.