Chris Christie's Anti-Trump Strategy: Act Like Trump

Joe Biden ran for president three times and never won, never won anything outside the state of Delaware now once until he ran up against the guy who the American people knew in their heart was full of it. They had watched the chaos, they had watched it disorder, they had watched the disrespect, they had watched the narcissism and the lion for four years, and they went, you know what, enough, I thought that something that was so apparent to me

When the twenty twenty four Republican presidential candidates take the stage tonight in Milwaukee for their first debate, one voice will no doubt be louder than all the others. No, not Donald Trump, he says, he'll be a no show.

I knew that so much of what he said was complete boloney. I'm going to build the greatest, most wonderful wall across the entire Mexico border, and Mexico is going to pay for it. Complete ball and if you listen to him, he'll tell you I totally succeeded. And now Biden. Biden is the reason that you know this is not happening. Well, Biden's made it worse.

But is ridiculing the most popular man in the party the way into Republican voters' hearts. Bloomberg BusinessWeek National correspondent Joshua Green went to find out.

The big question when you talk to political folks is does Chris Christy really think that he's going to be the Republican nominee? Or is he really out there seeking vengeance against Donald Trump with denying Trump the nomination by attack him and blowing him to smithereens be enough of a victory for Chris Christy.

I'm west Kasova today on the big take. What does Chris Christie really want? Hey, josh how's it going?

Well?

I'm all right, you're the one out on the campaign trail. What are you seeing out there?

A lot of candidates trying their hardest to avoid talking about Donald Trump? Who's the runaway front runner except one candidate, and that's the guy that I've been trailing, and that is Chris Christi, the former New Jersey governor.

Yeah. I mean, in a field of huge personalities, Chris Christi may be close to Donald Trump when it comes to getting noticed for the stuff he says.

He really is.

I mean, as politicians go, Christy was kind of Trump before Trump was Trump. You know, Who's the big, brash, Northeastern guy from Jersey who liked to into fights and have big confrontations and had that ability to kind of entertain from the stage, which is what first made Christy nationally famous. The problem is he and everybody else saw in twenty sixteen was that Donald Trump came along. I

In a way, it's kind of poetic, maybe even a little Shakespearean, that Christy is now going after Trump, because you write that Christy may have been the reason why Trump had the nomination in twenty sixteen.

Back then, there's this huge field of candidates running, and Trump was very much in the lead as he is now. The difference back then was that nobody really believed that Trump was going to be the Republican nominee. Everybody kept thinking he would fail, and they all attacked each other,

And why did Christy endorse Trump because he wasn't a great fan of his.

He did it because he wanted to be Trump's vice president. And jumping out early becoming the first important endorsement is a big chit for a politician to have, and that got Christy onto Trump's VP shortlist.

And why would Christy think that Trump would have picked him?

Well, a couple of reasons.

I mean one, Trump didn't have any kind of a political background, and so he was gonna need a serious VP that would reassure voters that the country wasn't going to go bananas. Christy was a guy who was, as we said, like Trump in a lot of ways. He was popular, he was moderate, and he really envisioned a

That was the idea going in.

The other big appeal to Chris Christie had to Donald Trump was that he is a ferocious debater. And there was a famous debate in February right before Christy dropped out where he decided to go after Marco Rubio.

Doing is he knows exactly memorized five seconds he speaks.

The Christy absolutely destroyed Rubio in a way that in a sense, hobbled Rubio's political career permanently. People still talk about that debate, and Christy told me that Trump loved it. That Trump would say, Chris here is a killer. He's a killer, and Trump loves killers, and so that also, I think raised Christy's level of esteem in Donald Trump's eyes, at least briefly, and Christy became in a lot of ways the most important person inside the Trump campaign at that very early stage.

But then, of course Trump passed over Christy for vice president.

He did, and Christy recounts in his memoir Trump calling him up the day before the announcement saying, you.

Know, are you ready? Are you ready to BVP?

I think Christy thought that he had the job in the bag, and then of course at the last minute, Trump comes out and picks Mike Pence instead, which was a real blow to Christy, but he was still put in charge of the presidential transition. Christy was, which was its own form of power, and everybody in the political press court and everybody in Washington thought, all right, well, this is sort of a holding job for some other big job in the him. Maybe he'll be the attorney general,

And why did he fire him? Why didn't he give him a big job in the administration.

You know, it's never quite clear with Trump, and he sort of falls in love and out of love with people very quickly. But it was clear that the very tight knit Trump campaign, which at the time was run by Steve Bannon, viewed Christy as an indoloper and a phony and not a real Maga guy and took an intense disliking to him. I talked to Bannon for this profile, and he told me that they all viewed Christy as Piggy from Lord of the Flies, the kid that everybody turns on and dislikes.

So now all these years later, Chris Christy is looking to balance the scales.

Yeah.

I mean the big question when you talk to political folks is, you know, does Chris Christie really think that he's going to be the Republican nominee or is he really out there seeking vengeance against Donald Trump? Would denying Trump the nominated by attacking him and blowing him to smithereens be enough of a victory for Chris Christy.

And it seems like Republicans are not really buying what he's trying to sell.

Well, you know, Christy is such a fascinating candidates. On the one hand, polls show that there's absolutely a portion of the Republican Party that does not want Donald Trump to be their nominee. The problem for Christy is they don't want Christy to be.

The nominee either.

So he's not popular with Trump fans, which doesn't come as a surprise because he spends most of his time attacking Trump. But he's also not popular with never Trumpers, and so that's been the real problem weighing Christy down in the polls.

Josh, you went out on the camping trail and watched Christy at work, What is he actually saying? When he's trying to convince voters to ditch Trump.

When Christy goes to these events in these town halls, the message he's sending like a clarion, is we cannot nominate Donald Trump again. We have to stop Donald Trump before it's too late.

A completely self centered, self consumed, angry old man. And if he were ever to become president again, I'll take him at his word. He said, I am your retribution. Well, he's not our retribution. He will be his own retribution.

That's a message that does appeal to a lot of Republican voters, as well as Democrats and independents. I mean I say in the piece that after attending a bunch of these events, you know, they come to feel like group therapy sessions. There'll be Republicans driving from hours and hours away, sometimes from other states to be at a Christie event just to be among people who are Republicans and who are put off by Donald Trump, who wants

So what exactly is his pitch against Trump? What are his main complaints against the former president?

When I was in South Carolina, for instance, you know, Christy came out and just went right after Donald Trump. He said he's selfish, he's a serially bankrupted con man, and is fully aware that he.

Lost the twenty twenty election to Joe Biden.

And who doesn't care about you Fleeesa's donors to pay his legal bills.

He's taking ten twenty five fifty dollars for middle class Americans across this country who believe in him, and he's putting it in his own pockets to pay his lawyers. It is disgraceful. It's beneath the office he asks for, and that and that alone, should this qualify him from being our nominee in twenty twenty four.

Christy's messages.

This guy is using you, and if we nominate him again, Republicans are going to lose. They're going to lose the White House, They're probably going to lose Congress. This is the moment when Republicans have to muster all their courage and finally kick Donald Trump to the Kurk.

That is what Christy is hoping will happen.

After the break. Why to Night's debate is so important for Christy.

My point view is, I'm not coming down here in South Carolina as some never Trumper. I worked hard to get him elected in twenty sixteen. I worked hard every day to make him the best president he possibly could be for all of us, and supported a lot of his policies. But he failed us.

Josh. One of the funny things you write in your story is that a lot of the people who show up to see Chris Christy aren't Republicans at all.

Yeah.

You know.

I went down to a town hall that he had in Columbia, South Carolina because I wanted to see Christy among you know, hardcore conservative South Carolina. I figured there'd be Heckler's there and a lot of Maga people, and instead, the first guy in the door was a sixty eight year old Democrat who driven two and a half hours to see Christy because he said, you know, I'm here because I don't like Trump's divisiveness, racism and misogyny, and I want to see Chris Christy light.

Him up, you know.

So he was almost there as a form of entertainment because it was exciting to him to see Christy tear this guy, Donald Trump to shreds. In South Carolina, That's okay because Republicans have an open primary, which means that Democrats and independents can vote in it along with Republicans. That's an important crowd for Christy and it's a reason why Christy is spending so much time in New Hampshire, which also allows Democrats and independence to vote in the

Why is Christy struggling to attract attention? Obviously from the Corimaga voters, they're always going to be with Trump, but he's a former governor, He's got political skills, he's a well known figure. Why is he not registering.

Well, if you look at the polls and you talk to political insiders, county chairman, those sorts of people, it's because people just don't trust Chris Christy. I did an interview for the piece with Seth Maskett, who's a political scientist who conducts a bi monthly poll of Republican county chairs. Those are kind of like the local big wigs who really kind of know what's going on in their districts. They're at the heart of local politics, and Christy as

And I liked that.

But I remember just a few years ago when he was trying to be Trump's vice president and saying that Trump was exactly the kind of strong leader that America needed.

One of the things he could look back on is his record as governor of New Jersey. But he had some trouble there too, Yeah, he did.

I mean for most of his term. You know, he's a very popular Republican governor in a largely democratic state. But toward the end of his term, there was what was called a Bridgegates scandal. There was a political scandal where people in Christie's administration closed lanes on the George Washington Bridge between New York and New Jersey in order to.

Punish a political rival.

Christy has always claimed that he wasn't aware of it, but I think it sullied his political reputation going into the twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen Republican primaries. And then you couple that with the fact that Donald Trump came along, who is the shinier, more exciting object And Christy never really took off, I think in the way that he'd hoped to.

Tonight, of course, is the first Republican debate, And you're right that Christy really sees these debates as the most important for him, for him not only to get his message out, but to weaken Trump in a way that maybe people would start to see him as not inevitable.

I think what Christy's really auditioning for, when he's really trying to get, what all these candidates are trying to get, is to emerge as the main Trump alternative, you know, the guy who kind of climbs the greasy pole to become the main focus of Trump and to kind of go after Trump. That guy was Ron DeSantis. But DeSantis has performed so poorly and has just fallen further and further and further in the polls. The since in the Republican field is that that role is now wide open.

That's the theory.

Anyway, Trump is not going to be on the stage night unless he surprises everybody. Is that good or bad for Christy because he clearly wants to go up against Donald Trump.

That is the fight that everybody wanted to see. I was talking to a well known Republican strategist in New Hampshire named Dave Carney, who's run campaigns in the past, who said Trump versus Christy on a debate stage, if you made it a pay per view event, would raise like two billion dollars, would be like Ali versus Frasier. It's bad news for Christy that Trump is not going to show up because what he really wants to do

Why do you think he's not taking the bait?

Though?

You know, it's a good question, because I got to be honest, I really thought he would.

I thought he couldn't.

He wouldn't be able to stand listening to Christy belittle him. I mean, this is a guy who Trump had belittled, and he's out there every day just saying the meanest, nastiest things about Trump in person, on social media and TV ads through a superback.

I think there are two things going on with Trump.

One, his advisors are showing him these polls and they're saying, listen, you've got a big lead. Why do you want to expose yourself to other people. The other thing is that Trump is in a great deal of legal jeopardy. You know, he's going to be surrendering to authorities in Georgia, where his latest indictment has taken place, and going out there and saying things off the cuff could potentially put him an even greater legal jeopardy, and so why take that risk.

You mentioned that Christy is likely to go after Rohn de Stantis. There's gonna be a lot of other people up on that debate stage too, the former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Hayley, Senator Tim Scott. Where do they figure into this big mix on the stage.

Most of these Republican candidates want voters to just discover their excellence and elevate them to the nomination without them ever having to say a mean word about Trump. As Christy says on the campaign trail, they're afraid of him. He likens Trump to Voldemort.

Hey, Effort's what confuses me about some of my fellow colleagues in this race. They don't want to talk about him. They treat him like he's Valdemort in the Harry Potter books. You know, he shall not be named.

It's going to be interesting to watch how these candidates try and emerge, because most of them, like I said, are afraid to go after Trump, and yet they recognize that they've got competition on that stage, and so they have to emerge as the apple of voters' eyes. I think one way they might do it is by going after Chris Christie and attacking him is a sort of bank shot way of defending Donald Trump. DeSantis, who telegraphs

But we'll see.

I mean, this is what's going to make the debate so exciting tonight is that nobody really knows what's going to happen or who's going to attack who, So it's a battle Royale. I don't know if you are a WWE fan wes when you're growing up watching professional wrestling, but they all hop in the ring and just sort of start wailing on each other. I think that's what Christy is expecting tonight.

When we come back. How Christie thinks he can take the nomination from Trump.

This is a contact sport. And the way I'm going to appeal to any voter in New Hampshire is to do what I just did and make the case I can make is someone in here was a Trump voter four years ago. Maybe this time they say, you know, let me give this guy a shot. I don't have a specific strategy. I'm going to be myself.

Josh and your piece of you posed this central question, does Christy really want to be president? Or does he have some other goal? And where'd you come down after reporting this story.

Christy is a smart guy. He's a veteran politician.

He knows how to read a poll, and so I assume that he is fully aware that he's not doing real great right now. Maybe the debates, you know, something crazy happens, but I think he's got to know that the chances of him winning the nomination are pretty low, and yet he's out there gleefully attacking Trump every day. I think what Christy is really after here is personal redemption.

And so who knows, maybe.

In twenty twenty eight, maybe even in twenty thirty two, Christy will get another chance to run for president and actually make at that time a lot at stake here beyond just winning the twenty twenty four nomination for Chris Christy.

And unlike the other candidates, Chris Christy is clearly not running to be vice president.

No, you know, that's the other thing that's going on with these debates. I mean, whether or not they realize that these candidates aren't really running to beat Donald Trump. I think most of them are auditioning to be Trump's vice president. Oh sign at all that voters are losing their affinity for him, even after all of these indictments. The big plub job that is open is Who's going

Why would any of these candidates want to be Trump's vice president? They're going to be standing on stage with the man who was and they saw how it ended for him.

Because they're politicians and they want power and attention. And the one thing we know for sure is that if Donald Trump does win reelection, he's only going to be serving one term. And so if you're VP, and if you can walk that tightrope that Mike Pence tried to walk for four years and stay in the good graces of the party, then at least in theory, you are the heir to Trump's dynasty and the leading Republican for the nominee going into twenty twenty eight.

Josh, you asked Chris Christy what he wants out of this. Does he want to be president? Does he just want to bring down Donald Trump? What did he tell you?

I asked a lot of Republican strategists if they saw a path to the nomination for Chris Christie.

And I couldn't find one who did.

But a number of people said they could see, given his political and debating talents, that maybe he'd be able to stop Donald Trump from becoming the nominee. And I asked Chris Christy when we sat down, would that be enough for you? Would that be a victory? And Christy just rejected the premise. He said, he's not out there running to stop Donald Trump. He's running to become the

Josh, great talking to you, Thanks for coming on the show.

All's pleasure.

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