Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is on the fence about running against his former friend, Donald Trump. Media speculation is a buzz the he could run for the highest office in the land. But can he actually win?
Here Comes Chris Christie?
“I’m definitely thinking about running, probably make a decision in the next 60 days on what to do or not to do,” Christie said in a radio interview with Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade this week. “You know me, when I make a decision I’ll let everybody know.”
Last year he said he ran once before in 2016 and would only run if he thought he had a path to win.
“Everyone is playing around with the idea of ‘Will I run or won’t I run?’” Christie told ABC’s “This Week” last month. “Who wants to be the first in the pool with Donald Trump when he has no on else to shoot at and his whole life is about shooting at people? Now why do you want to be the first on the pool to do that? And secondly, there’s no push from outside sources to say that you must make a decision.”
Christie tore into Trump during that appearance saying that Joe Biden didn’t as much win the presidency as Donald Trump lost it.
“Trump lost. You can’t change who somebody is,” Christie said. “In the end, Joe Biden is not an exciting candidate. He’s old. He’s boring, and the American people are not relating to him. That was the same in 2020, but he was running against somebody who was so toxic that he won anyway.”
USA Today quoted Chris Christie as saying that Trump only cares about himself.
“Trump said a few weeks ago, ‘I am your retribution,’” Christie said. “Guess what, everybody? No thanks.”
Christie added. “If we haven’t learned that since Election Day 2020 until today, we’re not paying attention.”
Christie told Fox 10 in Phoenix last year that he would only run for president if there was a clear path to the nomination. He flamed out as a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2016, only to become one of Donald Trump’s biggest advocates after the primaries.
He stood in for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in debate preparations for the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and chaired Trump’s presidential transition committee. He noted that he and the former president had been friends for at least 20 years until he said on television that Trump lost the 2020 election.
“If lying about the election is a requirement for being his friend, then that’s not a price I am willing to pay,” Christie said.
Chris Christie Is Tough
Christie believes that Trump is beatable.
“Can anyone else beat him, absolutely, I don’t think he has a lock on the presidential nomination in 2024. Does he have a right to run, of course he does, but he will now have to stand on what he did as president, and I think that will be an interesting conversation?” Christie told LiveNow From Fox last summer.
He added, during an appearance on Monday in New Hampshire, that beating Trump will require skill and courage on the debate stage.
“You better have somebody on that stage who can do to him what I did to Marco, because that’s the only thing that’s gonna defeat Donald Trump,” Christie said.
Chris Christie taunted Rubio during the Republican debate in New Hampshire in 2016, saying talking points about how bad Obama is and how great America is “doesn’t solve one problem for one person.” He made it clear that Rubio was not ready to be president and that he lacked solid executive experience.
If Christie runs he will be headed into a primary field dominated by Trump and a primary electorate dominated by Trump’s passionate loyalists. Christie represents the old Northeast establishment, which represents a declining portion of the GOP.
So far it looks as though the race will be chiefly be between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Trump, and Christie’s path to the nomination likely is very narrow because he lacks a constituency in the primaries.
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John Rossomando’s work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award in 2008 for his reporting.
