Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie lashed out at President Joe Biden during a Sunday morning appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
Christie and former Democratic Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel butted heads during a panel discussion over Georgia’s election law, and Christie accused Biden of doing the same things he had accused former President Donald Trump of doing. (RELATED: Psaki Doubles Down On Biden’s ‘Four Pinocchio’ Claim That Georgia Election Bill Ends Voting Hours Early)
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Emanuel responded to the law first, claiming that it was an unnecessary effort to find a solution to a problem that did not actually exist and arguing that it was an end run around elections that would allow the state legislature to overrule a secretary of state if the majority did not like the results of an election.
“If Donald Trump won Georgia, there would be no change in the law,” Emanuel said.
Fellow panelist Sarah Isgur Flores interrupted, saying that the Biden administration had claimed the new law would end early voting, which it did not.
Christie pushed back as well, claiming that the Biden administration had intentionally mischaracterized what was actually in the law.
“It expands early voting, George, and the president said it ended it. Listen, here’s what Joe Biden’s got to live with when he wakes up this morning on Easter morning. He is doing exactly what he sat around in the campaign and the transition and accused Donald Trump of doing,” Christie said. “He is lying to cause racial divisions in this country. That’s what he accused Donald Trump of doing and he’s a liar and a hypocrite.”
Biden responded to the bill’s provision for early voting — which specifies voting hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on specific days but allows for expansion from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on a county by county basis — by claiming that the goal was to prevent working people from being able to get to the polls.
“You’re going to close a polling place at 5 o’clock when working people just get off? This is all about keeping workin’ folks and ordinary folks that I grew up with from being able to vote,” Biden said.
A CNN fact-check published April 2 noted that the new law actually does, as Christie claimed, expand the hours for early voting in Georgia.