My guess is he’s playing the long game. With how these idiots mindlessly follow trump and must reshape their whole beliefs every time he contradicts the last one, Christie is just banking on them mindlessly shuffling to the next hypocritical stop on their train ride of bullshit. Christie probably thinks trump will fall far enough when the results of some of the trials start trickling in. He wants to position himself as the new savior they can worship. He expects them to ignore the previous few years of hate and vitriol they fomented and fall in line with the next guy.

I think they are stupid enough to do it.