Chris Christie’s Trump ‘revenge’ tour
Christian Datoc
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Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched his campaign for president on Tuesday, drawing ire and fat jokes from former President Donald Trump, the odds-on favorite to win the 2024 Republican nomination.
Christie is currently polling at 1% in RealClearPolitics’s 2024 average, the third-lowest of any announced Republican, but Republican strategists believe that the New Jerseyan’s run is more about getting “revenge” against Trump than any hopes of personally achieving the nation’s highest office, even if it ends his political career in the process.
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When Christie launched his 2016 bid in the summer of 2015, many viewed him as a legitimate contender for the nomination. Christie eventually fizzled, dropping out after the New Hampshire primary, and would go on to endorse Trump and serve as the head of his presidential transition team.
Christie continued to serve as a top ally to Trump throughout his time in the White House, even going so far as leading Trump’s prep for his 2020 debate with then-candidate Joe Biden, yet flipped on the president following his behavior leading up to and on Jan. 6.
New York and New Jersey Republicans, familiar with both Trump and Christie, tell the Washington Examiner that Christie is more focused on taking down Trump than actually winning the White House.
“In 2016, Trump was willing to say and do what Chris wasn’t,” one veteran New York GOP operative explained. “He stole Chris’s shtick, but now we know who Trump is. He’s a fighter, but he’s never gone up against someone who’s willing to get in the mud and fight to the death, and that’s what Chris wants to do. Get him on the debate stage and make him bleed.”
“Trump used him as a punching bag for four years. This is a revenge tour, plain and simple,” a second New York Republican added. “It doesn’t matter that taking down Trump will lose him the MAGA vote. Someone has to kill the mad king. Enter Jaime Lannister.”
Two New Jersey Republican operatives mentioned Christie’s “dismantling” of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) during a 2016 debate in New Hampshire as a blueprint for taking down Trump.
Rubio, who was then polling in third place in the crowded Republican primary, repeatedly used a canned line about former President Barack Obama, and Christie knocked Rubio for relying on a “memorized 30-second speech.”
Christie, then polling at 7%, would drop out after the New Hampshire primary, held three days after the debate, and though Rubio continued his campaign in the spring, his polling never recovered.
Christie’s alleged plans for Trump could be hindered by a yet-to-be-finalized debate schedule. Trump himself has been less than committed to appearing onstage with other candidates and reportedly has reservations about debating on certain networks entirely.
Still, Christie believes Trump can’t help but take part in the spectacle.
“His ego will not permit him not to be on that stage,” Christie told ABC in May. “I can tell you this from being the guy who prepped him for debates in ‘16 and in ‘20, he believes he will win every debate he’s in and that ego part of him will prevent him from skipping.”
“Until somebody’s out there and taking it to him, this is all being done in a vacuum,” he added. “You have to get in the ring and do it and take the risk that goes along with that.”
With the exception of Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Trump has slung mud at every other Republican to launch.
His reaction to Christie’s Tuesday night announcement focused on the former governor’s weight.
“How many times did Chris Christie use the word SMALL? Does he have a psychological problem with SIZE? Actually his speech was SMALL, and not very good. It rambled all over the place, and nobody had a clue of what he was talking about,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Hard to watch, boring, but that’s what you get from a failed Governor (New Jersey) who left office with a 7% approval rating and then got run out of New Hampshire. This time, it won’t be any different!”
Christie responded in kind with some verbal insults of his own.
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“He’s a juvenile. He’s a baby. Only children talk like that. He never said that about me when he offered me White House chief of staff,” Christie said in an interview with Fox News. “He never said that about me when he offered me secretary of homeland security, twice. Never said that about me when he offered me secretary of labor. I wasn’t any of those things then.”
“Look, the minute you speak out against him, Bret, you know what he does? He lashes back out like a child. And if you or I were raising that child, we’d send them to their room, not to the White House,” he concluded.