Guadagno: GOPers ‘cowardly and shameless’ for backing Trump election claims

Former Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno joined her old boss -- fellow Republican and former Gov. Chris Chris Christie -- in encouraging President Donald Trump to give up his challenge of the 2020 presidential election results.

Trump has claimed fraud led to Democrat Joe Biden's win in the election without providing evidence, and has lost a spate of challenges in court -- where, in most cases, his attorneys didn't actually allege any fraud took place but focused on other procedural or oversight issues. A Pennsylvania judge took the Trump legal team to task this weekend for what it said was a baseless request to throw out 7 million votes because two Trump voters said they didn't have as much time to fix errors on their ballots as people in Democratic-leaning counties.

The president's legal team has filed and lost 34 lawsuits so far, according to ABC News.

Guadano in an op-ed piece on NJ.com on Sunday recalled her own call to Phil Murphy when she lost the gubernatorial race to him in 2017. She said it's not an easy call to make.

"The orderly transition of power is the hallmark of our democracy and separates us from so many other countries," Guadagno wrote.

She also called out Republicans for being "disturbingly silent" on insisting that an orderly transition take place.

"Allowing President Trump to continue his campaign to undermine this election while denying President-elect Biden access to critical intelligence on the pandemic and national security, while Republicans sit on their hands, is not only cowardly and shameless but it poses a risk to the health and safety of our citizens," Guadagno wrote.

Guadagno has steered clear of politics since she lost the election and is currently the CEO of the Fulfill food bank in Monmouth and Ocean county.

She remembered the backlash she got when she criticized the then-2016 candidate, after a 2005 video of him having a crude conversation with Access Hollywood host Billy Bush surfaced.

"No apology can excuse away Mr. Trump's reprehensible comments degrading women. We're raising my 3 boys to be better than that," she wrote on her Twitter account at the time. Trump did not respond directly to her but during her run for governor it was believed to have been the reason she did not get financial support from the Republican National Committee, unnamed RNC leadership told NJ.com.

Christie on ABC's This Week called Trump's legal team a "national embarrassment" that has failed to produce any evidence of fraud.

"They allege fraud outside the courtroom, but when they go inside the courtroom, they don't plead fraud and they don't argue fraud," Christie said.

Murphy said on his Twitter account he was in agreement with Christie.

"Mayor Giuliani’s claim that Camden residents voted in Philadelphia is not only outrageous, but racist and blatantly false. On this one, I agree with @GovChristie that this guy is truly a national embarrassment," Murphy wrote.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNJ