Republican delegates were fired up Tuesday night by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's decision to lay out the case against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and he said Wednesday that's because he reminded them of "every one of her miserable failures."
"Last night I really needed to make the case slowly and methodically, factually against Hillary Clinton," Christie told
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "The problem is people in my party often get so angry about her that they yell and they scream and they use kind of divisive language that doesn't get to the core of my problem with her."
But when he asked the delegates Tuesday whether Clinton was
"guilty or not guilty," the delegates yelled back "guilty," and as he spoke, they erupted with calls to "lock her up."
In his speech, Christie, a former U.S. prosecutor, used his roots to build a case against Clinton by citing the Iran nuclear deal, her email scandal, and the 2012 Benghazi attack.
"The core of the problem with Hillary Clinton is that people do not think she's worthy of [becoming] the president," said Christie. "Not based on past scandals, based upon the very resume that she uses as proof that she deserves to be president."
And he agrees with the delegates: "she should be convicted, absolutely."
He told the program that he does have "great respect" for FBI Director Jim Comey, who he considers a "smart, good guy," but still, he thinks he "forgot his job."
"[Attorney General] Loretta Lynch is so absent from this, so compromised herself by meeting with [former] President [Bill] Clinton on the tarmac, Jim Comey thought he had to be FBI director and prosecutor at the same time," said Christie.
Comey said, while presenting the evidence that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring the case, but Christie said that if he was the person looking at such evidence, he'd bring the case.
But it wasn't Comey's decision to make, said Christie, and he thinks it would have been difficult for Comey to recommend charges publicly.
"The problem is the attorney general is so compromised ethically, she can't say one way or the other because she decided to take a meeting," said Christie.
He does think that the investigation into Clinton's emails took a long time, because "as they say in the FBI, it's a head shot. You've got to make sure that you've dotted every 'I' and crossed every 'T,' because you know the person on the other side is going to have the best legal counsel money can buy, the best investigators, and they're going to take your case apart even if it's a great one."
Meanwhile, Christie said he signed on as an early supporter of Trump's, and after knowing him for 14 years, trusts him to keep his word.
"This is not like a political science class," said Christie. "This is the real world. There is a binary choice here. It's Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump was not my first choice for president. I was. It didn't work out."