"I tried to call him ... to give him advice on what I thought he needed to be doing to stop the violence," the former governor told me during our hourlong interview at his home in New Jersey.

"I called Kellyanne Conway first. And I said to her: 'Have you spoken to him?' And she said she had not. And she said: 'I think we both need to call him.' And I said: 'Absolutely.' So I then called the president's secretary ... Couldn't get through. I then called his body guy. Didn't pick up. I then called the president's cell phone, and he didn't pick up."

The two were once so close Christie called him "Donald," even when he was in the White House. Right after Christie appeared on a Sunday show, the president would call him in the car and critique his appearance.

"I was desperate to try to get in touch with him," Christie told me, "because I felt like what was happening was awful and was going to be a stain on his presidency, and I wanted him to be the guy to stand up and stop it. But he didn't take the call, and so I said what I would have said to him privately on the air on ABC."

Christie, who's gaming out a possible run for president in 2024, said he still considers Trump a friend, and still would have supported him over President Biden.