Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump For President [VIDEO]

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie, whose hopes for the Republican nomination for president were crushed by consecutive poor showings in the party’s primaries including his final race, which ended in a whipping in New Hampshire, has endorsed real estate developer Donald Trump.

“He’s been my friend for many years, he’s been a spectacular governor,” Trump, standing with Christie at a press conference in Fort Worth, Texas, said. “He’s been a wonderful person. He’s been a wonderful loyal person.”

“I am proud to be here to endorse Donald Trump for president of the United States,” Christie said in his the endorsement (see video below).

Christie noted that he has been a friend of Trump for more than a decade, saying they’ve “done a lot of good” for New Jersey.

Indeed, Trump was a major player in Atlantic City for nearly three decades, often showing off his casinos such as the Trump Taj Mahal as the crown jewels of his real estate empire.

The casinos also nearly sank Trump as his companies that own the casinos became saddled with debt and found themselves in bankruptcy proceedings. Trump said he pulled out all his financial investments in Atlantic City by 2010.

Not everything has always been rosy between the two men, either. During his campaign appearances, Christie took shots at Trump for bringing ”entertainment” and not policy expertise to the campaign trail. Trump also criticized the governor for presiding over a state that’s had nine credit downgrades since Christie took office in 2010.

Lately, however, Christie has directed more frustration toward the other candidates in the race.

The governor, who acted triumphantly after his debate-takedown of Marco Rubio, used the opportunity in his appearance with Trump to say that Rubio and other GOP candidates are not as equipped as Trump to become president.

“I’ve been on that stage. I’ve gotten to know all the people on that stage and there is no one who is better prepared to provide America with the strong leadership that it needs, both at home and around the world, than Donald Trump,” Christie said.

Christie also said the GOP needs someone who can beat Democrat Hillary Clinton, saying the former secretary of state and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, “know how to run the standard political playbook against junior senators and run them around the block.”

With a reputation for unpredictability himself, Christie’s endorsement was not totally unexpected but seemed to take the political world by surprise with the endorsement coming less than a week before Super Tuesday, the biggest primary day on the calendar.

Trump was known to be especially happy about Christie’s takedown of Rubio, who went after Trump during Thursday night’s debate for his financial dealings.

When he announced his bid last summer, Christie became the first former or sitting New Jersey governor to launch a presidential campaign since President Woodrow Wilson, although Robert Meyner received 43 votes at the 1960 Democratic Convention.

Christie banked on his brash image - an approach that served him well when he provided an aura of strong leadership during the worst of Superstorm Sandy in 2012 - to carry him to the GOP nomination.

In the end, however, others - such as Donald Trump - took the tell-it-like-it-is mantle away from Christie and scored their own successes, while Christie floundered and failed to gain traction.

In his home state, his approach also could be wearing thin. A recent poll shows he has a 30 percent approval rating in New Jersey, which is among the lowest approval ratings for any of the state’s governors in the past 25 years.

The ”Bridgegate” scandal - the George Washington Bridge lane-closing political payback scheme that led to a guilty plea and the indictment of two ex-Christie aides - became Christie’s first political setback soon after he was re-elected by a landslide in 2013.