Chris Christie, who's mulling a 2024 presidential bid, warns against electing 'TV star' Trump again: 'The reruns will be worse than the original show'

• Chris Christie said there's only "one lane" for the GOP if they want to beat Trump in the primaries.
• "I'm going to tell people the facts about his presidency," he said in New Hampshire, according to The New York Times.

After a failed White House bid in 2016, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is testing the presidential waters once again — and he's focusing his fire at onetime political ally former President Donald Trump.

Unlike some of the current and potential GOP presidential candidates, who are attempting to thread the needle by calling for new leadership while also praising Trump's policies, Christie is making the case for his own potential candidacy with explicit critiques of the former president's conduct during his single term in office.

During a swing in critical New Hampshire, Christie warned Republican voters against renominating Trump in 2024.

"Donald Trump is a TV star. Nothing more, nothing less," Christie told a crowd, according to The New York Times. "And let me suggest to you that if we put it back to the White House, the reruns will be worse than the original show."

"I don't think that anybody is going to beat Donald Trump by sidling up to him, playing footsie with him and pretending that you're almost like him," he continued. "I'm going to tell people the facts about his presidency and about his conduct. If they decide they want that again, that's up to them."

(However, when Christie was asked if he would have backed Trump against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election knowing what would happen in the aftermath of the 2020 election, the ex-governor said he still would have voted for him, per The Times.)

Christie also made it clear that there was only one way to defeat Trump in the GOP primaries.

"I think there's this fiction about lanes," he said while speaking with potential primary voters. "There is one lane, OK? There are not multiple lanes. At the front of that lane right now is Donald Trump."

"If you want to win the Republican nomination for president, you have to beat Donald Trump and get to the front of that lane," he added.

Despite the sweeping criticism, Christie is no stranger to Trumpworld.

Following Christie's poor performances in both the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary in 2016, he suspended his campaign and threw his support behind Trump, which at the time was a major boost to the the first-time candidate's presidential bid.

After Trump defeated Clinton that fall, Christie was reportedly offered multiple roles in the administration, including the cabinet posts of homeland security secretary and labor secretary, but he ultimately chose to serve out the rest of his second term as governor after then-Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama was tapped to become attorney general — which was the role that he had been eyeing.

In 2020, Christie helped Trump prepare for his first debate with then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, but after the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, he criticized the then-president over the siege, which was sparked by pro-Trump supporters incensed over the certification of Biden's electoral victory.

However, just months later, Christie said he'd give Trump an "A" grade for the policies he was able to enact while in the White House.

While speaking in New Hampshire this week, Christie broached the topic of January 6 once again and blasted Trump over his response to the mayhem that day, per The Times.

"When he saw that, you know what he did?" the former governor said of Trump watching the riot unfold on television. "He ate his well-done cheeseburger, and sat there and did nothing."