Tag: chris christie
Blasting Trump And GOP Rivals As 'Unfit,' Bitter Christie Quits Race

Blasting Trump And GOP Rivals As 'Unfit,' Bitter Christie Quits Race

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced during a Wednesday town hall that he is ending his presidential bid.

"It's clear to me tonight that there isn't a path for me to win the nomination, which is why I'm suspending my campaign tonight for president of the United States," Christie told the town hall, saying it was "the right thing" to do.

Christie’s exit chiefly stands to benefit former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has steadily gained ground in New Hampshire polls over the last several months while Donald Trump has slipped. Haley has taken second in the three most recent independent polls cited on 538, all taken since Dec. 15.

The latest, a CNN/University of New Hampshire survey of likely Republican primary voters, found the following:

  • Trump: 39%
  • Haley: 32%
  • Christie: 12%
  • Vivek Ramaswamy: 8%
  • Ron DeSantis: 5%

Christie, who has run as the field’s most vocal Trump critic, has concentrated his entire race in the Granite State, amassing what is a presumably solid block of anti-Trump GOP voters. Based on his campaign, his supporters are most likely to accrue to Haley rather than DeSantis, who has chiefly run as a Trump mini-me. Some quick back of the napkin math suggests such a boost from Christie voters looking for a new home could make Haley competitive with Trump.

Ahead of Christie’s town hall event, the candidate was caught in a hot-mic moment lamenting that voters didn’t seem open to his message.

“People don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to hear it. We know we’re right. But they don’t want to hear it,” Christie said. “We couldn’t have been any clearer. We couldn’t have been any more direct or worked any harder. So. You know.”

Later, before the mic was cut, Christie also suggested Haley didn’t have a chance of winning.

”She’s gonna get smoked. And you and I both know it. She’s not up to this,” he said.

It’s unclear from the recording exactly who Christie was speaking with, but the Biden campaign was happy to help disseminate Christie’s sentiments.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Chris Christie

Chris Christie Questions His  Former Friend Trump's Mental Health (VIDEO)

Former New Jersey governor and 2024 Republican presidential primary contender Chris Christie rebuffed one of ex-President Donald Trump's attack lines during a Wednesday night appearance on The Balance.

Newsmax anchor Eric Bolling recalled that Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday morning that "Chris Christie and maybe deranged Jack Smith should get together for dinner" because "he's just a crazed lunatic," in reference to Christie.

"You wanna respond to it?" Bolling asked.

Christie replied with follow-up questions for Trump.

Yeah, well, look. I feel bad for Donald. I really do. You know, he's on there saying that I'm not very smart, that I'm very deranged. Look, he didn't think that, Eric, in 2018 when he offered me White House chief of staff. He didn't think that in 2016 when he offered– when he made me chairman of his transition. He didn't think that in 2017 when he made me chairman of his opioid commission. He didn't think of that when he offered me secretary of Homeland Security twice, and secretary of Labor.

You know, so, look. I disagree with the things that Donald Trump did in the 2020 election. I disagree with the way he's conducted himself after the fact. I think it's bad for the country. I think it's beneath the office he held. But when he says stuff like that about somebody who you know, supported him in 2016, prepared him for the debates with Hillary Clinton, supported him in 2020, and prepared him for the debates with Joe Biden, if I was so useless and dumb and deranged, how did all that stuff happen? It's sad. He's under a lot of stress and a lot of pressure, and saying these things makes me really concerned for his mental health.

Watch below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Chris Christie

Dull DeSantis Can't Beat Trump -- But Maybe Colorful Christie Can

The sane world agrees. You don't get more bizarre than Ron DeSantis' latest foray into culture war lunacy. We speak of that campaign video that bashes gay America while flashing a picture of Brad Pitt as a hunky Achilles.

What homophobic crackhead made this ad? The Florida governor recalls Herbert Lom in The Pink Panther movie, where as an Inspector Dreyfus gone mad, he's seen banging angrily on a piano in a mental institution.

DeSantis clearly seems to be trying to get to the right of Donald Trump. But Trump doesn't look to his right as much as to his audience. He commands a big chunk of the Republican party by constantly entertaining it. The only other Republican who can also put on a show is, ironically, the most forceful Trump critic vying for the Republican nomination. He is former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Say what you want about Trump. He would sell Alaska to Vladimir Putin, and throw in our nuclear secrets. He'd tell his deplorables that Gatorade better prevents polio than the vaccine. As long as he can deliver a lively line, he's got his base.

But Christie can also deliver a line. True, his poll numbers remain in the single digits, but they're going up while DeSantis' are falling. A recent New Hampshire poll puts Christie third among registered voters. His six percent is creeping up on DeSantis' 19 percent.

What Trump has and Christie has but DeSantis has none of is a sense of humor. Perpetually beating up on Disney is political strangeness personified. Sending his wife Casey out to "humanize" DeSantis is not going to work. A former TV personality in tight party dresses and stiletto heels seems an imperfect spokeswoman for "mamas" in Iowa.

DeSantis wants to sell himself to caucusgoers in Iowa as the anti-gay, anti-abortion upholder of the faith. But if the Republicans of Iowa — and MAGA country in general — wanted a real Christian, they'd be filling auditoriums for Mike Pence. Instead they lie prostrate at the feet of the Golden Calf from Manhattan, an adulterer who cheated on his third wife.

Like Trump, Christie is out there. Though he's from New Jersey, he plays the part of a New Yorker with an outer borough accent. Christie is the only challenger to blast at Trump with a left hook, although Asa Hutchinson deserves credit for saying in his gentle Southern style that Trump is not fit to be president.

One of Trump's main appeals to followers is that he seems to say what he thinks, even the outrageous stuff. Much of what comes out of his mouth is ignorant sewage, but to many it sounds like honesty because of the tough-guy persona. In 2016, Trump famously went for the jugulars of other Republicans running for the nomination. Christie knows where his opponents' neck veins are.

Christie is also colorful and good on TV. That means TV is going to give him more airtime. It was Trump's television persona, after all, that made him a national figure able to win the 2016 nomination in a race against top-drawer Republican figures.

The other Republican candidates are mostly scaredy-cats, trying to replace Trump without saying "mean" things about him. As for policy positions, it's hard to see how DeSantis is going to wow Iowa with his abortion ban. Even Kansas wouldn't go there.

It's interesting that conservative Peggy Noonan recently wrote in her Wall Street Journal column, "Chris Christie could easily defeat Joe Biden."

I'd like to think that it would not be easy for anyone to beat Biden, given his pile of successes and a strong economy. But Christie could possibly do it. DeSantis could not.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Chris Christie

WATCH: Christie Opens Campaign In New Hampshire With Epic Trump Takedown

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had news about Donald Trump for attendees of his presidential campaign kickoff event Tuesday night in New Hampshire.

"If you think for one minute, when he says, 'I am your retribution'—if you think he wants to be your retribution, forget it," Christie told them, referring to Trump's signature 2024 campaign pledge. "He's going to be retribution for one person and one person only: himself."

Trump, he said, was a "bitter, angry man" who wanted to get back in the seat of power so he could look out for No. 1.

"If you want somebody who's actually going to fight for you," Christie continued, "I would suggest to you he's not the right choice."

Before launching, Christie advertised himself and fundraised for his bid as a brawler who would take on Trump like no other Republican in the GOP field. Frankly, that was a very low bar, given the lightweight barbs of Trump's other rivals thus far. But Christie didn't just clear that bar during his town hall-style event at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics: He smashed it to smithereens.

If New Hampshire marked a bitter end to Christie's disappointing run in 2016, he delivered a raucous rebirth Tuesday, with nothing and no one off limits.

“The grift from this family is breathtaking,” Christie said, going straight at the Trump family's shameless swindling. “Jared Kushner and Ivanka Kushner walk out of the White House and months later get $2 billion from the Saudis?”

What for? It's a payoff, Christie suggested.

"You think it’s because he’s some kind of investing genius?" Christie posited. "Or do you think it’s because he was sitting next to the president of the United States for 4 years doing favors for the Saudis?"

Voters should be pissed off, he added.

"That’s your money," Christie said. "That’s your money he stole, and gave it to his family."

Speaking of wasting taxpayer money, Trump dug America into the biggest financial ditch it's ever seen.

"He left with the biggest deficit of any president in American history," Christie said, before pummeling one of Trump's patently ridiculous 2016 campaign pledges. "He said he was going to eliminate the national debt in 8 years. He added $3 trillion to the national debt in 4 years."

On foreign policy, Christie wondered if attendees had heard the one from Trump about promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours if he were elected president.

"Did you hear that one?" Christie asked, calling it "a beauty" worthy of Trump's "top five" list in “a career of complete falsehoods."

But hey, why not give Trump the benefit of the doubt, Christie continued.

"Let me tell you how he would. He'd give Ukraine to Russia," Christie explained. "He'd call Zelenskyy and say, 'Hey, guess what? Time to raise the Russian flag up on the poll. We're out of here.'"

Christie managed a few hits on other 2024 candidates, but he deftly kept Trump in the mix.

Only Trump, Christie said, could manage to lose to Joe Biden.

"He wouldn't be in office if it wasn't for Trump," Christie offered. "Joe Biden never beat anybody outside the state of Delaware in 45 years except for one guy: Donald J. Trump," he said, knocking Biden's two previous runs for president in 1988 and 2008.

Christie also added a touch of humor at his own expense, but not without a jab at Trump first.

"Beware of the leader in this country, who you have handed leadership to, who has never made a mistake, who has never done anything wrong, who when something goes wrong it's always someone else's fault, and who has never lost," Christie said, then paused as the crowd giggled at his oblique reference to Trump's persistent election fraud lies.

"I've lost," Christie continued earnestly, before pointing around the room and dropping a pitch-perfect delivery: "You people did that to me in 2016."

Indeed, Christie suffered a sixth-place finish in the Granite State after hanging his hopes on a strong finish there to boost his 2016 bid.

But now Christie's back, warning voters about the "pretenders" who say, "Pick me, ‘cause I'm kinda like what you picked before—but not quite as crazy, but I don't want to say his name."

Christie completed his barb at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by saying the name.

"Let me be clear," he said, "the person I am talking about who is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault, who always finds someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong, but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right—is Donald Trump."

Trump's response to Christie's truly epic takedown of him was a predictable exercise in fat shaming the man who initially led his presidential transition team and nearly died after helping COVID-positive Trump prep for a 2020 debate.

"How many times did Chris Christie use the word SMALL?" Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Does he have a psychological problem with SIZE?" Trump also disseminated doctored video of the town hall depicting Christie at a buffet.

Trump is known for his mastery of finding his opponents' weak spots and savagely exploiting them, but if anything seemed small by comparison, it was Trump's response to Christie's biting commentary.

Trump has never seen broadsides like this from a Republican rival with no fucks to give beyond his promise of going nuclear on the perennial loser and GOP front-runner.

Perhaps because Christie's critique of Trump was so brutally incisive and Trump's response so childishly predictable, it seemed weak. But one has to wonder if Trump’s one-time superpower still packs the same punch.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.