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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.

#EndorseThis: Seth Meyers Explains The Hypocrisy Of Trump’s ‘Working Vacation’

#EndorseThis: Seth Meyers Explains The Hypocrisy Of Trump’s ‘Working Vacation’

Late Night host Seth Meyers on Monday took “A Closer Look” at President Trump’s 17-day “working” vacation at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. Were you aware of how frequently Trump, on the campaign trail, trashed then-President Obama for golfing? Or that Trump enlisted former CNN contributor Kayleigh McEnany for a cheesy, propagandistic “real news” broadcast out of Trump Tower in New York?

“It’s pizza day in the cafeteria,” Meyers mocked. “But you won’t hear that from thee failing New York Times.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SMGaQqHyTo

5 Ways That Despised Chris Christie Is Trolling New Jersey

5 Ways That Despised Chris Christie Is Trolling New Jersey

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Chris Christie is just trolling New Jerseyans at this point.

In June, a Quinnipiac University poll found that his approval rating stood at a dismal 15 percent, the lowest of any American governor in decades. Yet this past weekend, he was photographed sunbathing on a beach that had been closed to the public amid a state government shutdown.

Here are five ways the New Jersey governor is extending a giant middle finger to voters before he leaves office:.

1. Shutting down beaches…for taxpayers.

A health care bill involving Horizon, the state’s largest health insurer, catalyzed a fiscal debacle not seen since 2006.

“I’m not happy about this,” Christie said in a press conference, hours before the government shutdown began Friday. “This is completely avoidable.”

As a result, all state-run parks, recreational areas, forests, camping areas, historic sites, and beaches were shuttered. But not for Christie. The New Jersey governor and his family had Island Beach State Park all to themselves on Sunday, less than 48 hours after the start of the shutdown.

In an interview WTXF-TV in Philadelphia on Monday, Christie offered this inexplicable defense of his afternoon tanning session: “Well, I’m sorry… they’re not the governor.”

2. No interest in helping Atlantic City.

After updating the legislation to his liking, “Gov. Chris Christie once again rejected a set of rescue bills aiming to give a boost to the financially struggling Jersey Shore gambling resort,” reported NJ.com in January last year.

Christie provided no explanation for his decision, which left a $33.5 million gap in Atlantic City’s municipal budget. Now, casinos could be forced to shut down if the stalemate continues, costing the city millions during peak tourist season.

3. Marijuana arrests on the rise.

A new American Civil Liberties Union report published in June found that marijuana arrests have been steadily rising under Christie, a former federal prosecutor, just as New Jersey is progressing toward legalization.

What’s worse, according to the ACLU, “black residents were three times more likely than their white counterparts to be arrested on marijuana charges despite no difference in the rate of marijuana use between the two groups.”

4. Commuting remains a mess.

A transportation expert pulled Crain’s reporter Greg David aside ​at the Crain’s Real Estate Forum in June.

“It’s going to be a tense summer in the city,” he warned, “with 400,000 angry people getting off the trains each day.”

“He was referring to the commuters from New Jersey and Long Island derailed by track problems at Penn Station,” reported David, “and the 100,000 or more subway riders who see their commute disrupted every day by the antiquated signal system.”

A week earlier, New Jersey Advance Media had found that less than 50 percentof the state’s morning trains to Penn Station arrived on time in May.

“State aid to New Jersey Transit declined by 90% under Gov. Chris Christie,” David added.

5. Back pay not likely for workers affected by shutdown.

When 45,000 government workers were pulled off the job during New Jersey’s first-ever state government shutdown, Gov. Jon Corzine, along with the state senate and assembly, agreed to grant them retroactive pay.

“Don’t count on it [this time],’ Christie has asserted.

“That was Jon ‘I’ll fight for a good contract for you’ Corzine,” he said of the former governor at a news conference Friday. “I ain’t him.”

Alexandra Rosenmann is an AlterNet associate editor. Follow her @alexpreditor.

This article was made possible by the readers and supporters of AlterNet.

Judge Rules ‘Bridgegate’ Complaint Against Christie Can Proceed

Judge Rules ‘Bridgegate’ Complaint Against Christie Can Proceed

PRINCETON, N.J. (Reuters) – A citizen’s complaint against New Jersey Governor Chris Christie related to the “Bridgegate” lane-closure scandal can move forward, a judge ruled on Thursday, referring the case to state prosecutors to consider possible criminal charges.

Roy McGeady, the presiding judge for Bergen County municipal courts, found probable cause for the criminal complaint filed last month by Bill Brennan, an activist and retired firefighter, a court official confirmed.

The complaint of official misconduct accused Christie of knowing about a plot to close down lanes at the George Washington Bridge as an act of political payback. The governor has repeatedly denied any prior knowledge of the closures, which created massive traffic jams in northern New Jersey.

The ruling ratchets up the political pressure on Christie, who became a major supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump after dropping his own White House bid and now heads his White House transition team.

The controversy surrounding the scandal, which has resulted in criminal charges against two of Christie’s associates, helped scuttle his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and has eroded the governor’s approval ratings in New Jersey.

The misconduct case now moves to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, which will decide whether enough evidence exists to support a criminal charge. “The office has no comment at this time,” spokeswoman Maureen Parenta said in an email.

Brennan filed the complaint in municipal court in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where Christie allies were accused of deliberately causing a massive traffic jam in September 2013 by closing access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in order to punish the town’s mayor. The bridge is a major link to New York City.

The two Christie associates – his former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly, and former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive Bill Baroni – have been on trial in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, for their alleged roles in the scandal.

Brennan’s complaint was based on testimony from David Wildstein, another Port Authority executive who pleaded guilty in the case and has been cooperating with prosecutors, that Christie was aware of the lane closures at the time.

A Christie spokesman, Brian Murray, said the governor would appeal the ruling immediately.

“This is a dishonorable complaint filed by a known serial complainant and political activist with a history of abusing the judicial system,” Murray said. “The simple fact is the governor had no knowledge of the lane realignments either before they happened or while they were happening. This matter has already been thoroughly investigated by three separate independent investigations.”

Brennan has filed numerous complaints, as well as lawsuits, against various officials in New Jersey over the years.

Federal prosecutors have accused Kelly, Baroni and Wildstein of orchestrating the lane closures to send a message to Fort Lee Mayor Michael Sokolich after the Democrat refused to endorse Christie’s 2013 gubernatorial re-election campaign.

At the time, Christie was already eyeing a White House run, and his advisers believed a show of bipartisan support would help enhance his national standing.

Christie, 54, was among the 17 Republicans who originally vied for the Republican presidential nomination, but he dropped out of the race in February after failing to gain traction in the early voting. He became one of eventual nominee Trump’s staunchest supporters.

As head of the New York businessman’s transition team, he would work to smooth the handover from Democratic President Barack Obama to Trump should Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election.

U.S. prosecutors are nearing the end of their case against Kelly and Baroni after four weeks of testimony. Lawyers for the two defendants have argued that virtually the entire Christie administration was aware of the scheme and have portrayed Kelly and Baroni as scapegoats.

Both were expected to take the witness stand in their defense.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Frank McGurty and Jonathan Oatis)

IMAGE: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 19, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young