Gov. Christie's former Chief Messaging Officer Maria Comella, left, exits a New Hampshire town hall meeting with the governor, First Lady Mary Pat Christie and strategist Mike DuHaime, right. Comella on Tuesday announced that she would be voting for Hillary Clinton for president over Trump. (February 4, 2016. Henniker, NH - Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
Former top Christie aide: I'm voting for Clinton over Trump
TRENTON — One of Gov. Chris Christie's most trusted and closest former aides has publicly broken with the governor over his backing of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and said she will vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Maria Comella, who served as Christie's chief messaging officer during his presidential campaign and for most of his governorship before that, excoriated the real estate mogul as a "demagogue" who is "preying on people's anxieties" and not "qualified or ready to be president."
In an email interview with CNN on Tuesday, said she is making her decision to vote for Clinton in November public now because Republicans are "at a moment where silence isn't an option."
Comella excoriated the real estate mogul as a "demagogue" who is "preying on people's anxieties" and not "qualified or ready to be president."
Donald Trump repeatedly has criticized Khizr and Ghazala Khan, who spoke last week at the Democratic National Convention ahead of Hillary Clinton's nomination, setting off a national debate. On Tuesday, N.J. Gov. Chris Christie called it "inappropriate" to criticize Gold Star families.
Christie was first among the large field of Republican primary candidates to endorse Trump in late February, and has been serves as Trump's transition planning chief since May.
In her email, Comella said that Trump has "been drumming up fear and hatred of the 'other'" rather than uniting the country.
Trump has been criticized by fellow Republicans like U.S. Sen. John McCain for his attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of slain U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, a soldier who gave his life protecting fellow soldiers during a car bomb attack in Iraq in June 2004.
The Khans, who like their son, are Muslims, appeared at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last week, with Capt. Khan's father criticizing Trump, who has proposed banning all Muslims from entering America.
"Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution?" asked Khan, producing a copy of the document from his suit pocket, and brandishing it. "I will gladly lend you my copy."
Trump subsequently suggested that Khan's mother didn't speak at the DNC because she "wasn't allowed to have anything to say."
Comella said that in Trump, the GOP has "a nominee who would rather pick fights because he views it as positive news coverage...It may make him media savvy, but it doesn't make him qualified or ready to be president."
In January, Comella sent a rare email directly to political reporters making the case for Christie to be president, and quoted Christie's own criticism of Trump.
"As Governor Christie said, 'Keeping America great is more than a damn slogan on a hat. OK? It's more than that. It's got to be something more. It better be something more.'"
Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
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