Chris Christie shoots down pardon chatter: 'No reason to show mercy' to Trump

Chris Christie tried to quiet talk of a Republican president pardoning Donald Trump, saying the former president wouldn't even admit to any wrongdoing.

The former New Jersey governor appeared Thursday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," fresh off the first GOP presidential debate the evening before, and singled out rival Vivek Ramaswamy's promise to pardon the four-times-indicted Trump and called out the rest.

"The only thing that offends me more than folks who turn their back on law and order to how it applies to Donald Trump for political purposes are those who try to have it both ways for political purposes," Christie said. "I think I said it pretty clearly in the clip you showed that by about 15 minutes in, I had already had enough of being told that for somebody who like me, sacrificed seven years of my life being a United States attorney for New Jersey, and then another eight years being governor of New Jersey, that I am bought and paid for by anybody, especially by a candidate like Vivek who, you know, in his book that came out last year, said Donald Trump's conduct on Jan. 6 was reprehensible, plain and simple. Now he says, 'I didn't say that.' No, I'm not saying you said it – you wrote it, or whoever wrote your book for you wrote it."

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"You know, he now says he's the guy who will pardon Donald Trump and wants everyone else to commit to it," Christie added, "and I actually thought Mike Pence's answer on that was pretty good, where he said, you know, 'I have used the pardon power,' and so have I as governor of New Jersey, and it should be used with mercy and reason, and there's no reason to show mercy on Donald Trump when he doesn't want to admit anything he did was wrong."

Watch the segment below or at this link.