Speaker 1: Joe Biden ran for president three times and never won,
Speaker 1: never won anything outside the state of Delaware now once
Speaker 1: until he ran up against the guy who the American
Speaker 1: people knew in their heart was full of it. They
Speaker 1: had watched the chaos, they had watched it disorder, they
Speaker 1: had watched the disrespect, they had watched the narcissism and
Speaker 1: the lion for four years, and they went, you know what, enough,
Speaker 1: I thought that something that was so apparent to me
Speaker 1: would be apparent to everybody. Let me guarantee you something.
Speaker 1: I ain't making that mistake this time.
Speaker 2: When the twenty twenty four Republican presidential candidates take the
Speaker 2: stage tonight in Milwaukee for their first debate, one voice
Speaker 2: will no doubt be louder than all the others. No,
Speaker 2: not Donald Trump, he says, he'll be a no show.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about Chris Christi, the former New Jersey governor
Speaker 2: and very former Trump supporter, has now made it his
Speaker 2: mission in life to do what none of his rivals
Speaker 2: has dared to do, relentlessly attack Trump with the kind
Speaker 2: of language that Trump uses to attack everyone else.
Speaker 1: I knew that so much of what he said was
Speaker 1: complete boloney. I'm going to build the greatest, most wonderful
Speaker 1: wall across the entire Mexico border, and Mexico is going
Speaker 1: to pay for it. Complete ball and if you listen
Speaker 1: to him, he'll tell you I totally succeeded. And now Biden.
Speaker 1: Biden is the reason that you know this is not happening. Well,
Speaker 1: Biden's made it worse.
Speaker 2: But is ridiculing the most popular man in the party
Speaker 2: the way into Republican voters' hearts. Bloomberg BusinessWeek National correspondent
Speaker 2: Joshua Green went to find out.
Speaker 3: The big question when you talk to political folks is
Speaker 3: does Chris Christy really think that he's going to be
Speaker 3: the Republican nominee? Or is he really out there seeking
Speaker 3: vengeance against Donald Trump with denying Trump the nomination by
Speaker 3: attack him and blowing him to smithereens be enough of
Speaker 3: a victory for Chris Christy.
Speaker 2: I'm west Kasova today on the big take. What does
Speaker 2: Chris Christie really want? Hey, josh how's it going?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: I'm all right, you're the one out on the campaign trail.
Speaker 2: What are you seeing out there?
Speaker 3: A lot of candidates trying their hardest to avoid talking
Speaker 3: about Donald Trump? Who's the runaway front runner except one candidate,
Speaker 3: and that's the guy that I've been trailing, and that
Speaker 3: is Chris Christi, the former New Jersey governor.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, in a field of huge personalities, Chris
Speaker 2: Christi may be close to Donald Trump when it comes
Speaker 2: to getting noticed for the stuff he says.
Speaker 4: He really is.
Speaker 3: I mean, as politicians go, Christy was kind of Trump
Speaker 3: before Trump was Trump. You know, Who's the big, brash,
Speaker 3: Northeastern guy from Jersey who liked to into fights and
Speaker 3: have big confrontations and had that ability to kind of
Speaker 3: entertain from the stage, which is what first made Christy
Speaker 3: nationally famous. The problem is he and everybody else saw
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen was that Donald Trump came along. I
Speaker 3: did Christie's act better than Christy did. And so here
Speaker 3: he is seven eight years later, trying to get back
Speaker 3: in the game, trying to run for president, and this
Speaker 3: time he's going after Trump directly, and he's pretty much
Speaker 3: the only guy who's really going after Trump hard. And
Speaker 3: to me, that makes him the most interesting character to
Speaker 3: watch during the debate.
Speaker 2: In a way, it's kind of poetic, maybe even a
Speaker 2: little Shakespearean, that Christy is now going after Trump, because
Speaker 2: you write that Christy may have been the reason why
Speaker 2: Trump had the nomination in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: Back then, there's this huge field of candidates running, and
Speaker 3: Trump was very much in the lead as he is now.
Speaker 3: The difference back then was that nobody really believed that
Speaker 3: Trump was going to be the Republican nominee. Everybody kept
Speaker 3: thinking he would fail, and they all attacked each other,
Speaker 3: but Trump just kept getting stronger. And when it got
Speaker 3: to about mid February and Christy realized like he wasn't
Speaker 3: going to be the guy, he dropped out of the race,
Speaker 3: and a couple weeks later became the first Republican presidential
Speaker 3: candidate to endorse Donald Trump, which was huge news at
Speaker 3: the time because up until then, the biggest endorsement that
Speaker 3: Trump had managed to wrangle with Sarah Palin, who really
Speaker 3: didn't count for anything. And the fact that Christy got
Speaker 3: out and endorsed Trump, I think essentially cinched the nomination
Speaker 3: for Trump. It was the first big establishment figure to
Speaker 3: come out and get behind Donald Trump, vouched for him
Speaker 3: and to say this is going to be the next
Speaker 3: Republican nominee, and that's exactly what Trump became.
Speaker 2: And why did Christy endorse Trump because he wasn't a
Speaker 2: great fan of his.
Speaker 3: He did it because he wanted to be Trump's vice president.
Speaker 3: And jumping out early becoming the first important endorsement is
Speaker 3: a big chit for a politician to have, and that
Speaker 3: got Christy onto Trump's VP shortlist.
Speaker 2: And why would Christy think that Trump would have picked him?
Speaker 4: Well, a couple of reasons.
Speaker 3: I mean one, Trump didn't have any kind of a
Speaker 3: political background, and so he was gonna need a serious
Speaker 3: VP that would reassure voters that the country wasn't going
Speaker 3: to go bananas. Christy was a guy who was, as
Speaker 3: we said, like Trump in a lot of ways. He
Speaker 3: was popular, he was moderate, and he really envisioned a
Speaker 3: sort of a Dick Cheney role for himself. Like Donald
Speaker 3: Trump is obviously not going to spend his days working
Speaker 3: the levers of government and puzzling over legislative texts, so
Speaker 3: he would leave all the real work and all the
Speaker 3: real power to Chris Christy. That was Christie's view, and
Speaker 3: so he thought, well, if I can't be president, at
Speaker 3: least I can be the vice president and be the
Speaker 3: guy who's kind of secretly running the country behind the scenes.
Speaker 4: That was the idea going in.
Speaker 3: The other big appeal to Chris Christie had to Donald
Speaker 3: Trump was that he is a ferocious debater. And there
Speaker 3: was a famous debate in February right before Christy dropped
Speaker 3: out where he decided to go after Marco Rubio.
Speaker 1: Doing is he knows exactly memorized five seconds he speaks.
Speaker 3: The Christy absolutely destroyed Rubio in a way that in
Speaker 3: a sense, hobbled Rubio's political career permanently. People still talk
Speaker 3: about that debate, and Christy told me that Trump loved it.
Speaker 3: That Trump would say, Chris here is a killer. He's
Speaker 3: a killer, and Trump loves killers, and so that also,
Speaker 3: I think raised Christy's level of esteem in Donald Trump's eyes,
Speaker 3: at least briefly, and Christy became in a lot of
Speaker 3: ways the most important person inside the Trump campaign at
Speaker 3: that very early stage.
Speaker 2: But then, of course Trump passed over Christy for vice president.
Speaker 3: He did, and Christy recounts in his memoir Trump calling
Speaker 3: him up the day before the announcement saying, you.
Speaker 4: Know, are you ready? Are you ready to BVP?
Speaker 3: I think Christy thought that he had the job in
Speaker 3: the bag, and then of course at the last minute,
Speaker 3: Trump comes out and picks Mike Pence instead, which was
Speaker 3: a real blow to Christy, but he was still put
Speaker 3: in charge of the presidential transition. Christy was, which was
Speaker 3: its own form of power, and everybody in the political
Speaker 3: press court and everybody in Washington thought, all right, well,
Speaker 3: this is sort of a holding job for some other
Speaker 3: big job in the him. Maybe he'll be the attorney general,
Speaker 3: or maybe he'll be some important cabinet member. Instead, Trump
Speaker 3: did what he does to a lot of important Republicans
Speaker 3: come to work for him, firing him.
Speaker 2: And why did he fire him? Why didn't he give
Speaker 2: him a big job in the administration.
Speaker 3: You know, it's never quite clear with Trump, and he
Speaker 3: sort of falls in love and out of love with
Speaker 3: people very quickly. But it was clear that the very
Speaker 3: tight knit Trump campaign, which at the time was run
Speaker 3: by Steve Bannon, viewed Christy as an indoloper and a
Speaker 3: phony and not a real Maga guy and took an
Speaker 3: intense disliking to him. I talked to Bannon for this profile,
Speaker 3: and he told me that they all viewed Christy as
Speaker 3: Piggy from Lord of the Flies, the kid that everybody
Speaker 3: turns on and dislikes.
Speaker 2: So now all these years later, Chris Christy is looking
Speaker 2: to balance the scales.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean the big question when you talk to political
Speaker 3: folks is, you know, does Chris Christie really think that
Speaker 3: he's going to be the Republican nominee or is he
Speaker 3: really out there seeking vengeance against Donald Trump? Would denying
Speaker 3: Trump the nominated by attacking him and blowing him to
Speaker 3: smithereens be enough of a victory for Chris Christy.
Speaker 2: And it seems like Republicans are not really buying what
Speaker 2: he's trying to sell.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, Christy is such a fascinating candidates. On
Speaker 3: the one hand, polls show that there's absolutely a portion
Speaker 3: of the Republican Party that does not want Donald Trump
Speaker 3: to be their nominee. The problem for Christy is they
Speaker 3: don't want Christy to be.
Speaker 4: The nominee either.
Speaker 3: So he's not popular with Trump fans, which doesn't come
Speaker 3: as a surprise because he spends most of his time
Speaker 3: attacking Trump. But he's also not popular with never Trumpers,
Speaker 3: and so that's been the real problem weighing Christy down
Speaker 3: in the polls.
Speaker 2: Josh, you went out on the camping trail and watched
Speaker 2: Christy at work, What is he actually saying? When he's
Speaker 2: trying to convince voters to ditch Trump.
Speaker 3: When Christy goes to these events in these town halls,
Speaker 3: the message he's sending like a clarion, is we cannot
Speaker 3: nominate Donald Trump again. We have to stop Donald Trump
Speaker 3: before it's too late.
Speaker 1: A completely self centered, self consumed, angry old man. And
Speaker 1: if he were ever to become president again, I'll take
Speaker 1: him at his word. He said, I am your retribution. Well,
Speaker 1: he's not our retribution. He will be his own retribution.
Speaker 3: That's a message that does appeal to a lot of
Speaker 3: Republican voters, as well as Democrats and independents. I mean
Speaker 3: I say in the piece that after attending a bunch
Speaker 3: of these events, you know, they come to feel like
Speaker 3: group therapy sessions. There'll be Republicans driving from hours and
Speaker 3: hours away, sometimes from other states to be at a
Speaker 3: Christie event just to be among people who are Republicans
Speaker 3: and who are put off by Donald Trump, who wants
Speaker 3: somebody else there. And so in that sense, Christy is
Speaker 3: almost like a counselor staging an intervention with people, saying,
Speaker 3: you know, you have to kick this Trump addiction Republicans
Speaker 3: before it's too late, and before we cost ourselves the
Speaker 3: White House in twenty twenty four. That's a message that
Speaker 3: has a lot of power. The problem is it doesn't
Speaker 3: have the power to attract a majority of Republican primary voters.
Speaker 3: And in the end, and that's what Chris Christie is
Speaker 3: going to have to do if he wants to become
Speaker 3: the Republican nominee.
Speaker 2: So what exactly is his pitch against Trump? What are
Speaker 2: his main complaints against the former president?
Speaker 3: When I was in South Carolina, for instance, you know,
Speaker 3: Christy came out and just went right after Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: He said he's selfish, he's a serially bankrupted con man,
Speaker 3: and is fully aware that he.
Speaker 4: Lost the twenty twenty election to Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: And who doesn't care about you Fleeesa's donors to pay
Speaker 3: his legal bills.
Speaker 1: He's taking ten twenty five fifty dollars for middle class
Speaker 1: Americans across this country who believe in him, and he's
Speaker 1: putting it in his own pockets to pay his lawyers.
Speaker 1: It is disgraceful. It's beneath the office he asks for,
Speaker 1: and that and that alone, should this qualify him from
Speaker 1: being our nominee in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: Christy's messages.
Speaker 3: This guy is using you, and if we nominate him again,
Speaker 3: Republicans are going to lose. They're going to lose the
Speaker 3: White House, They're probably going to lose Congress. This is
Speaker 3: the moment when Republicans have to muster all their courage
Speaker 3: and finally kick Donald Trump to the Kurk.
Speaker 4: That is what Christy is hoping will happen.
Speaker 2: After the break. Why to Night's debate is so important
Speaker 2: for Christy.
Speaker 1: My point view is, I'm not coming down here in
Speaker 1: South Carolina as some never Trumper. I worked hard to
Speaker 1: get him elected in twenty sixteen. I worked hard every
Speaker 1: day to make him the best president he possibly could
Speaker 1: be for all of us, and supported a lot of
Speaker 1: his policies. But he failed us.
Speaker 2: Josh. One of the funny things you write in your
Speaker 2: story is that a lot of the people who show
Speaker 2: up to see Chris Christy aren't Republicans at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I went down to a town hall that he had
Speaker 3: in Columbia, South Carolina because I wanted to see Christy
Speaker 3: among you know, hardcore conservative South Carolina. I figured there'd
Speaker 3: be Heckler's there and a lot of Maga people, and instead,
Speaker 3: the first guy in the door was a sixty eight
Speaker 3: year old Democrat who driven two and a half hours
Speaker 3: to see Christy because he said, you know, I'm here
Speaker 3: because I don't like Trump's divisiveness, racism and misogyny, and
Speaker 3: I want to see Chris Christy light.
Speaker 4: Him up, you know.
Speaker 3: So he was almost there as a form of entertainment
Speaker 3: because it was exciting to him to see Christy tear
Speaker 3: this guy, Donald Trump to shreds. In South Carolina, That's
Speaker 3: okay because Republicans have an open primary, which means that
Speaker 3: Democrats and independents can vote in it along with Republicans.
Speaker 3: That's an important crowd for Christy and it's a reason
Speaker 3: why Christy is spending so much time in New Hampshire,
Speaker 3: which also allows Democrats and independence to vote in the
Speaker 3: Republican primary. The problem is that most Republican primary states
Speaker 3: are not like that. They're either closed primaries or caucuses,
Speaker 3: which means you've got to win with Republican voters, and
Speaker 3: that's a group that Christi performs very poorly with.
Speaker 2: Why is Christy struggling to attract attention? Obviously from the
Speaker 2: Corimaga voters, they're always going to be with Trump, but
Speaker 2: he's a former governor, He's got political skills, he's a
Speaker 2: well known figure. Why is he not registering.
Speaker 3: Well, if you look at the polls and you talk
Speaker 3: to political insiders, county chairman, those sorts of people, it's
Speaker 3: because people just don't trust Chris Christy. I did an
Speaker 3: interview for the piece with Seth Maskett, who's a political
Speaker 3: scientist who conducts a bi monthly poll of Republican county chairs.
Speaker 3: Those are kind of like the local big wigs who
Speaker 3: really kind of know what's going on in their districts.
Speaker 3: They're at the heart of local politics, and Christy as
Speaker 3: the most despised GOP candidate in the entire field. When
Speaker 3: you talk to Republican county chairs, he has the largest
Speaker 3: group of county chairs against him. And I think a
Speaker 3: big reason for that is that Christy, if you go
Speaker 3: back a few years, he was running for president against
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. Then he turned around and endorsed Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: So he was Trump's first champ, and now he's back
Speaker 3: to aggressively attacking Donald Trump again. He's had a lot
Speaker 3: of different positions. I think people don't really know where
Speaker 3: he stands. But I think the never Trump group also
Speaker 3: has suspicions about Chris Christie because they look at him
Speaker 3: and say, well, yes, he's going after Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: And I liked that.
Speaker 3: But I remember just a few years ago when he
Speaker 3: was trying to be Trump's vice president and saying that
Speaker 3: Trump was exactly the kind of strong leader that America needed.
Speaker 2: One of the things he could look back on is
Speaker 2: his record as governor of New Jersey. But he had
Speaker 2: some trouble there too, Yeah, he did.
Speaker 3: I mean for most of his term. You know, he's
Speaker 3: a very popular Republican governor in a largely democratic state.
Speaker 3: But toward the end of his term, there was what
Speaker 3: was called a Bridgegates scandal. There was a political scandal
Speaker 3: where people in Christie's administration closed lanes on the George
Speaker 3: Washington Bridge between New York and New Jersey in order to.
Speaker 4: Punish a political rival.
Speaker 3: Christy has always claimed that he wasn't aware of it,
Speaker 3: but I think it sullied his political reputation going into
Speaker 3: the twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen Republican primaries. And then
Speaker 3: you couple that with the fact that Donald Trump came along,
Speaker 3: who is the shinier, more exciting object And Christy never
Speaker 3: really took off, I think in the way that he'd
Speaker 3: hoped to.
Speaker 2: Tonight, of course, is the first Republican debate, And you're
Speaker 2: right that Christy really sees these debates as the most
Speaker 2: important for him, for him not only to get his
Speaker 2: message out, but to weaken Trump in a way that
Speaker 2: maybe people would start to see him as not inevitable.
Speaker 3: I think what Christy's really auditioning for, when he's really
Speaker 3: trying to get, what all these candidates are trying to get,
Speaker 3: is to emerge as the main Trump alternative, you know,
Speaker 3: the guy who kind of climbs the greasy pole to
Speaker 3: become the main focus of Trump and to kind of
Speaker 3: go after Trump. That guy was Ron DeSantis. But DeSantis
Speaker 3: has performed so poorly and has just fallen further and
Speaker 3: further and further in the polls. The since in the
Speaker 3: Republican field is that that role is now wide open.
Speaker 3: Maybe de Santus recovers, but I think we're going to
Speaker 3: see Christy go after Desantus in a very aggressive way
Speaker 3: in order to make sure that he doesn't. And I
Speaker 3: think Christy's hope is that if voters see somebody who
Speaker 3: is a strong leader and powerful and aggressive, but they've
Speaker 3: been conditioned to kind of respond to that sort of
Speaker 3: thing after eight years of Donald Trump, and that they'll
Speaker 3: gravitate to Christy as as an alternative.
Speaker 4: That's the theory.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Trump is not going to be on the stage
Speaker 2: night unless he surprises everybody. Is that good or bad
Speaker 2: for Christy because he clearly wants to go up against
Speaker 2: Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: That is the fight that everybody wanted to see. I
Speaker 3: was talking to a well known Republican strategist in New
Speaker 3: Hampshire named Dave Carney, who's run campaigns in the past,
Speaker 3: who said Trump versus Christy on a debate stage, if
Speaker 3: you made it a pay per view event, would raise
Speaker 3: like two billion dollars, would be like Ali versus Frasier.
Speaker 3: It's bad news for Christy that Trump is not going
Speaker 3: to show up because what he really wants to do
Speaker 3: is go mono amano with Trump. And you could see
Speaker 3: even in Christie's emails this week, you know he's out
Speaker 3: calling Trump a coward. There was an email I got.
Speaker 3: The subject line for Christy was say it to my
Speaker 3: face Trump. You know, he's he's trying to turn this
Speaker 3: into like a kind of one on one slap fight
Speaker 3: between him and Trump because he knows that if Trump
Speaker 3: were to take the bait, that that would elevate Christie's
Speaker 3: candidacy in a way that he very much needs it
Speaker 3: to be. But Trump so far has shown fairly uncharacteristic
Speaker 3: discipline in refraining from getting into it with Christy.
Speaker 2: Why do you think he's not taking the bait?
Speaker 4: Though?
Speaker 3: You know, it's a good question, because I got to
Speaker 3: be honest, I really thought he would.
Speaker 4: I thought he couldn't.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't be able to stand listening to Christy belittle him.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a guy who Trump had belittled,
Speaker 3: and he's out there every day just saying the meanest,
Speaker 3: nastiest things about Trump in person, on social media and
Speaker 3: TV ads through a superback.
Speaker 4: I think there are two things going on with Trump.
Speaker 3: One, his advisors are showing him these polls and they're saying, listen,
Speaker 3: you've got a big lead. Why do you want to
Speaker 3: expose yourself to other people. The other thing is that
Speaker 3: Trump is in a great deal of legal jeopardy. You know,
Speaker 3: he's going to be surrendering to authorities in Georgia, where
Speaker 3: his latest indictment has taken place, and going out there
Speaker 3: and saying things off the cuff could potentially put him
Speaker 3: an even greater legal jeopardy, and so why take that risk.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that Christy is likely to go after Rohn
Speaker 2: de Stantis. There's gonna be a lot of other people
Speaker 2: up on that debate stage too, the former Vice President
Speaker 2: Mike Pence, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Hayley, Senator Tim Scott.
Speaker 2: Where do they figure into this big mix on the stage.
Speaker 3: Most of these Republican candidates want voters to just discover
Speaker 3: their excellence and elevate them to the nomination without them
Speaker 3: ever having to say a mean word about Trump. As
Speaker 3: Christy says on the campaign trail, they're afraid of him.
Speaker 3: He likens Trump to Voldemort.
Speaker 1: Hey, Effort's what confuses me about some of my fellow
Speaker 1: colleagues in this race. They don't want to talk about him.
Speaker 1: They treat him like he's Valdemort in the Harry Potter books.
Speaker 1: You know, he shall not be named.
Speaker 3: It's going to be interesting to watch how these candidates
Speaker 3: try and emerge, because most of them, like I said,
Speaker 3: are afraid to go after Trump, and yet they recognize
Speaker 3: that they've got competition on that stage, and so they
Speaker 3: have to emerge as the apple of voters' eyes. I
Speaker 3: think one way they might do it is by going
Speaker 3: after Chris Christie and attacking him is a sort of
Speaker 3: bank shot way of defending Donald Trump. DeSantis, who telegraphs
Speaker 3: every awkward move that he makes in politics. His superPAC
Speaker 3: released a memo last week sort of saying, when Christy
Speaker 3: attacks Trump, you should attack Christy because that will show
Speaker 3: people that you're a Trumper. And somehow that's supposed to
Speaker 3: turn around his tailspin.
Speaker 4: But we'll see.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is what's going to make the debate
Speaker 3: so exciting tonight is that nobody really knows what's going
Speaker 3: to happen or who's going to attack who, So it's
Speaker 3: a battle Royale. I don't know if you are a
Speaker 3: WWE fan wes when you're growing up watching professional wrestling,
Speaker 3: but they all hop in the ring and just sort
Speaker 3: of start wailing on each other. I think that's what
Speaker 3: Christy is expecting tonight.
Speaker 2: When we come back. How Christie thinks he can take
Speaker 2: the nomination from Trump.
Speaker 1: This is a contact sport. And the way I'm going
Speaker 1: to appeal to any voter in New Hampshire is to
Speaker 1: do what I just did and make the case I
Speaker 1: can make is someone in here was a Trump voter
Speaker 1: four years ago. Maybe this time they say, you know,
Speaker 1: let me give this guy a shot. I don't have
Speaker 1: a specific strategy. I'm going to be myself.
Speaker 2: Josh and your piece of you posed this central question,
Speaker 2: does Christy really want to be president? Or does he
Speaker 2: have some other goal? And where'd you come down after
Speaker 2: reporting this story.
Speaker 4: Christy is a smart guy. He's a veteran politician.
Speaker 3: He knows how to read a poll, and so I
Speaker 3: assume that he is fully aware that he's not doing
Speaker 3: real great right now. Maybe the debates, you know, something
Speaker 3: crazy happens, but I think he's got to know that
Speaker 3: the chances of him winning the nomination are pretty low,
Speaker 3: and yet he's out there gleefully attacking Trump every day.
Speaker 3: I think what Christy is really after here is personal redemption.
Speaker 3: You know, he had this wonderful reputation, He was the
Speaker 3: big guy in Republican politics back in twenty twelve, twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: everybody thought he was going to be president, and then
Speaker 3: Steady endorsed Trump, and what happened to Christy became almost
Speaker 3: like the prototype for what happens to respectable Republicans who
Speaker 3: go to work for Trump, they get chewed up and
Speaker 3: spit out with their reputation in tatters. And that's pretty
Speaker 3: much what happened to Chris Christy. If he goes out
Speaker 3: and manages to stop Donald Trump from winning the nomination,
Speaker 3: he will be a hero, not just Democrats, but to
Speaker 3: a lot of Republicans too. There was a moment I
Speaker 3: talked about in my piece where we were at a
Speaker 3: town hall in South Carolina and this elderly woman stands
Speaker 3: up and takes the microphone and turns to Christy and says,
Speaker 3: when you cross the pearly gates, you will be rewarded
Speaker 3: for telling the truth about Donald Trump. And everyone sort
Speaker 3: of stood up and it was clapping and cheering, and
Speaker 3: Christy was just basking in their adulation. And so you
Speaker 3: can envision a future I can't anyway, where maybe he
Speaker 3: doesn't win the nomination, but he's kind of redeemed himself
Speaker 3: and he becomes a big figure in politics. He gets
Speaker 3: a big TV contract, you know, maybe he gets a
Speaker 3: nice job with a Lincoln Project, the Anti Trump group,
Speaker 3: or maybe you know, Christy's only sixty years old, which
Speaker 3: is like adolescent in American electoral politics these days. There
Speaker 3: will come a time eventually where Trump is off the
Speaker 3: political stage and the Republican Party stands for something other
Speaker 3: than Donald Trump. You know, we've been waiting for this
Speaker 3: to happen for like eight years, and we're really no
Speaker 3: closer to it. But at least in theory, there will
Speaker 3: arrive a post Trump era, and if Republicans do finally
Speaker 3: turn on Donald Trump, you know, Christy will be viewed
Speaker 3: as as the truth teller who went after him when
Speaker 3: other people were afraid to.
Speaker 4: And so who knows, maybe.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty eight, maybe even in twenty thirty two,
Speaker 3: Christy will get another chance to run for president and
Speaker 3: actually make at that time a lot at stake here
Speaker 3: beyond just winning the twenty twenty four nomination for Chris Christy.
Speaker 2: And unlike the other candidates, Chris Christy is clearly not
Speaker 2: running to be vice president.
Speaker 3: No, you know, that's the other thing that's going on
Speaker 3: with these debates. I mean, whether or not they realize
Speaker 3: that these candidates aren't really running to beat Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: I think most of them are auditioning to be Trump's
Speaker 3: vice president. Oh sign at all that voters are losing
Speaker 3: their affinity for him, even after all of these indictments.
Speaker 3: The big plub job that is open is Who's going
Speaker 3: to be Trump's VP. Obviously, the big exception of that
Speaker 3: is former Vice President Mike Pence, who is not going
Speaker 3: to be Trump's VP in twenty twenty four, and it's
Speaker 3: certainly not going to be Chris Christie, but it could
Speaker 3: be just about anybody else. And I think that's one
Speaker 3: reason why the other candidates like Scott and Haley and
Speaker 3: Vivat Ramaswami are out there running but refusing to criticize
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, because I think they're hedging their bets and thinking, well,
Speaker 3: you know, if Trump doesn't fall and I become nominee,
Speaker 3: at least I'd have the chance to be perhaps his VP.
Speaker 3: And if I were to become his VP, you would
Speaker 3: then be the future of the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: Why would any of these candidates want to be Trump's
Speaker 2: vice president? They're going to be standing on stage with
Speaker 2: the man who was and they saw how it ended
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 3: Because they're politicians and they want power and attention. And
Speaker 3: the one thing we know for sure is that if
Speaker 3: Donald Trump does win reelection, he's only going to be
Speaker 3: serving one term. And so if you're VP, and if
Speaker 3: you can walk that tightrope that Mike Pence tried to
Speaker 3: walk for four years and stay in the good graces
Speaker 3: of the party, then at least in theory, you are
Speaker 3: the heir to Trump's dynasty and the leading Republican for
Speaker 3: the nominee going into twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: Josh, you asked Chris Christy what he wants out of this.
Speaker 2: Does he want to be president? Does he just want
Speaker 2: to bring down Donald Trump? What did he tell you?
Speaker 3: I asked a lot of Republican strategists if they saw
Speaker 3: a path to the nomination for Chris Christie.
Speaker 4: And I couldn't find one who did.
Speaker 3: But a number of people said they could see, given
Speaker 3: his political and debating talents, that maybe he'd be able
Speaker 3: to stop Donald Trump from becoming the nominee. And I
Speaker 3: asked Chris Christy when we sat down, would that be
Speaker 3: enough for you? Would that be a victory? And Christy
Speaker 3: just rejected the premise. He said, he's not out there
Speaker 3: running to stop Donald Trump. He's running to become the
Speaker 3: Republican nominee and to become the president. And he said, listen,
Speaker 3: you know, if I go out and I wipe the
Speaker 3: floor with Donald Trump, voters are going to think, Okay,
Speaker 3: he did that to Trump, what in God's name will
Speaker 3: we do to Joe Biden. That was what Christy told me,
Speaker 3: and the other thing he said, when you look back
Speaker 3: at history, the guy who kills the king usually becomes
Speaker 3: the king himself, not somebody else. Christy is at least
Speaker 3: claiming that if he's able to stop Donald Trump, voters
Speaker 3: will recognize that there's a new sheriff in town and
Speaker 3: nominate him to be a presidential candidate in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: But that's what I'm going to be watching for tonight,
Speaker 3: in the debate and in the weeks ahead as Christy
Speaker 3: takes on Trump, hopefully one on one.
Speaker 2: Josh, great talking to you, Thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 4: All's pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.
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