After more than two hours of a presidential candidacy announcement turned town hall, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie urged his New Hampshire audience not to hold back on their final question. “Let’s end on a hot one!” he said.

And they did: If former President Donald Trump is indicted and convicted, would a President Christie pardon him?

“I can’t completely answer that until I know what he was charged with and convicted of … but, as a prosecutor, if I believe someone has gotten a full and fair trial, in front of a jury of their peers and especially someone in public life who committed those crimes, when they held the public trust, I can’t imagine pardoning them.”

But, Christie added, that in order for someone to accept a pardon, they have to admit fault and guilt for what they have done — something Trump has never done, he said. “That’s why I’m completely in the clear!”

Christie’s evening at Saint Anselm College's New Hampshire Institute of Politics differed from the events held by the two presumptive front-runners, Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in that the former New Jersey governor took questions directly from the audience.

It also differed in that he was naming — and in some cases, shaming — his opposition.

“If your leaders are not willing to admit to you that they’re fallible, that they make mistakes, that they hurt like you … beware,” Christie said. “Beware of the leader in this country … who has never made a mistake, who has never done anything wrong, and when something goes wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault — and who has never lost.”

A leader like that, Christie said, “think America’s greatness resides in the mirror he’s looking at.”

In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday morning, one day after his kickoff event in New Hampshire, Christie doubled down on that attack against the former president — and the current resident of the Oval Office.

"What we have seen over the last eight years, both from the Biden administration and from the Trump administration, is folks on the Trump side, who put themselves before the American people," Christie told anchor George Stephanopoulos. "That's exactly what he's done each and every time when there's been a key decision to make. And Joe Biden has shown he is simply not up for the job. I've been tested, tested over and over again in a blue state when I was governor, a very difficult place to govern, and I know how to bring solutions to our party, and most importantly, to our country."

Christie's opening speech, and subsequent town hall Q&A session, was less about hot-button culture war issues that have dominated recent GOP politics and more about the differences between him and his opponents, who he said seek more to divide Americans into smaller and smaller pieces, rather than under one big tent. 

Though he’s already chosen his campaign slogan (“Because the truth matters,” according to his website), the theme is clearly “go big” — following in the footsteps of the American Revolution, of the Civil War, the World Wars, the Space Race and the Cold War. The United States won those conflicts and competitions by taking extra-big swings under brave leadership, he said.

Similarly, Christie signaled his support for Ukraine against Russia, and to push back against Chinese trade domination by “rebuilding respect.”

Christie also admitted that he’s not a perfect candidate, a perfect politician, or a perfect person. He referenced the "Bridgegate" scandal, in which his staff and political appointees conspired to cause gridlock on the George Washington Bridge to Manhattan. 

“If you’re in search of the perfect candidate, it’s time to leave,” Christie said. “What we need is someone who is going to look at this country and say, you’re not perfect, I’m not perfect, but we are better than any place else in the world, and we better get back to aspiring to that.”

Earlier Tuesday, Christie formally filed paperwork to run for president again ahead of his planned announcement in New Hampshire on Tuesday evening.

Christie, 60, joins a growing GOP field that also includes former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, ex-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Christie, who also ran for president in 2016, has been a longtime Trump ally but broke with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election.

Christie has since become one of Trump's most vocal Republican critics. Following Trump’s CNN town hall earlier this month, Christie called Trump “a coward” and “a puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Shortly after, the former New Jersey governor told ABC’s “This Week” that he thinks Trump needs a challenger who won’t “cozy up to him.”

The other Republican candidates, Christie said, “hope that he implodes and that if they are nice to him that they'll inherit his voters. It’s all this like political science classroom theory that they are engaged in, which I think is a losing proposition for any of those candidates.

“You can't beat Donald Trump by playing bumper pool and hitting it off three cushions and hope it goes in the hole. That's not the way it works.”

On "GMA" on Wednesday, Christie said "only one lane to the Republican nomination for president," and it runs through the former president.

"You need to go right through him and make the case against him," Christie said of Trump. "And that's what I intend to do, while also making the case for leadership that doesn't turn its back on Ukraine, for leadership that says, 'yes, we have to be fiscally responsible again,' for leadership that says we should have educational freedom, and that when you make promises as a presidential candidate, you should keep them."

"Donald Trump promised to replace and repeal Obamacare, he didn't do it," Christie continued. "Donald Trump promised to build a wall across the border with Mexico and have Mexico pay for it. He didn't do it. He promised to balance the budget in four years, he left with the largest deficit of any president in history. And he promised to retire our national debt in eight years, and he added trillions to it ... broken promises like that aren't acceptable anymore to the American people, the stakes are too high. That's the case you need to make it if you make it effectively, I think we will be the nominee."

Christie pledged to "do whatever it takes" to make it to the debate stage to take on Trump and "make the case directly to the American people" about why he should be president.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found 2% of Republicans or Republican-leaning voters support Christie, well behind Trump’s 56% and DeSantis’ 25%. 

True to his word, Christie leveled direct attacks against Trump, casting the former president as someone who couldn’t get immigration policy done despite Republican control of the Senate and the House. “When you watch illegal immigration pouring over our southern border, don’t wonder whose fault it is: It’s his. It’s his fault,” Christie said. 

“There are not multiple lanes to the Republican nomination — that’s a political science professor’s dream,” Christie said. “There’s one lane to the Republican nomination, and he’s in front of it.”

Christie served as New Jersey’s governor from 2010 to 2018. He dropped out of the 2016 presidential race after poor showings in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.