By Ryan
Mills
Tuesday,
June 06, 2023
Taking
aim at Donald Trump as a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror-hog,”
former New Jersey governor Chris Christie launched a long-shot campaign for the
Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday night, declaring that “character
matters.”
Speaking
in front of a large American flag, Christie, 60, made the announcement during a
town hall at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. He promised “some straight
talk from New Jersey.”
He
argued that our recent presidents — Barack Obama, Trump, and now Joe Biden —
have all made the country “smaller in every way” by dividing Americans into
smaller and smaller groups. “This is a Right and a Left problem,” Christie
said.
Pointing
to the leadership of the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and 20th-century
presidents — Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and
Ronald Reagan — Christie said America has a long history of going big. “All
throughout our history there have been moments when we had to choose between
big and small,” he said. “I would tell you, the reason I’m here tonight is
because this is one of those moments.”
Unlike
other Republican candidates, Christie was clear that his sights are aimed at
Trump. “A lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror-hog is not a leader,”
Christie said.
“Let me
be clear, in case I have not been already, the person I am talking about who is
obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault,
and 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,” Christie said.
While
other Republican candidates have tiptoed around calling out the former
president, who is dominating national polls, Christie said it is critical to
address Trump.
“If we
don’t have that conversation with you, we don’t deserve to ask for your vote,
we don’t deserve the mantle of leadership, we don’t deserve to have you think
of us as people worthy of leadership,” he said.
He said
that “character matters” but acknowledged that he has made plenty of mistakes
in his career. “If you are in search of the perfect candidate, it is time to
leave. I am not it,” he said.
Christie
also took aim at other Republican contenders. He was presumably talking about
Florida governor Ron DeSantis when he mentioned candidates talking about issues
that are so small “that sometimes it’s hard to even understand them.” DeSantis
has been criticized for focusing his campaign on culture-war issues and frequently
talking in conservative jargon.
“And now
we have pretenders all around us who want to tell you, ‘Pick me, because I’m
kind of like what you picked before, but not quite as crazy,’” Christie said.
After
announcing his run, Christie took questions from members of the audience. Ahead
of the town hall, he filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to
officially launch his bid.
Christie,
who served as governor of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018 and previously ran for
president in 2016, is pitching himself as an unabashed truth-teller and
risk-taker who is uniquely positioned to take on Trump in the Republican
debates.
He
appears to be running to lead the explicitly anti-Trump lane of the primary,
telling Axios earlier this year that he will never support
the former president again,
even if Trump wins the Republican nomination next year.
“I can’t
help him. No way,” Christie said, “When you have the January 6 choir at a rally
and you show video of it — I just don’t think that person is appropriate for
the presidency.”
But even
with his announcement, it’s not clear Christie will ever have the opportunity
to debate Trump again. According to new Republican National Committee rules,
candidates will need to have at least 1 percent support in several qualifying
polls and at least 40,000 donors to get on the debate stage. And Trump has
suggested he might skip the primary debates.
It’s
also not clear that Republican voters are looking to turn to a pre-Trump-style
leader.
Christie,
a lawyer and brash former New Jersey state lawmaker, was appointed U.S.
attorney for New Jersey by then-president George W. Bush in 2001. He was
elected governor in 2009, defeating Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine in the
general election.
During
his two terms, he became known as a bipartisan negotiator who cut government
spending, capped property-tax increases, took on the state’s teachers’ unions,
and enacted police and bail reform. But his tenure was also marked by a
difficult job market, eleven downgrades of the state’s credit, and some
scandal, including what became known as “Bridgegate.”
In 2013,
some members of his administration shut down the George Washington Bridge to
punish the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., for not supporting Christie’s reelection
campaign. He also faced pushback in 2017 after he and his family enjoyed a day
at a beach that had been closed to the public during a state-government
shutdown.
Christie’s
approval rating, which had topped out at over 70 percent in the aftermath of
Hurricane Sandy in 2012, sank to the mid teens by the end of his second term.
At one point, his 15-percent approval was the lowest ever
recorded for a
New Jersey governor.
He ran
for president in 2016 as a tough-talking moderate. The highlight of that run
came during a February 2016 debate when Christie went after
Florida senator Marco Rubio, taunting him and attacking him for robotically answering questions
with a “memorized 25-second speech.” Rubio responded to the attack by
regurgitating a memorized line he’d already used.
Rubio
tanked in the New Hampshire primary, finishing fifth. Christie placed sixth
with only 7 percent of the vote. Christie made a joke about that Tuesday night,
telling the audience to beware a leader who won’t acknowledge when he or she
loses.
“I’ve
lost,” Christie said. “You people did that to me in 2016.”
After
his poor performance in New Hampshire that year, Christie suspended his
campaign and became the first national GOP figure to endorse Trump, facing
accusations that he had demeaned
himself publicly by
doing so.
He went
on to head Trump’s transition team, was an ally of Trump during his presidency,
and helped prepare Trump for his 2020 debate with Joe Biden.
He
eventually broke with Trump after the 2020 election when Trump refused to
concede defeat and after he helped to instigate the January 6 riot at the U.S.
Capitol.
“The
election wasn’t stolen. He lost,” Christie told the news
website Semafor in April. “I understand why he has a hard time coming to terms
with losing to Joe Biden.”
Christie
has said he would not run in 2024 if didn’t see a path to victory. “If I get
into the race, I’ll make it interesting,” he told Semafor. A
skilled rhetorical pugilist, Christie has also painted himself as the candidate
best positioned to sink Trump in the Republican debates.
“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 going to defeat Donald Trump,” he said
recently. “And that means you’ve got to have the skill to do it. And that means
you have to be fearless because he will come right back at you.”
Christie
has called the former president a “coward” and a “puppet of Putin.”
In
addition to attacking Trump, Christie has also jabbed at Ron DeSantis over his
ongoing feud with Disney, saying he doesn’t believe the Florida governor is a
real conservative.
“I
believe as a conservative the job of government is in the main to stay out of
the business of business. I don’t think we should be heavily regulating business.
I don’t think we should be telling business what to do, what to say, how to
think. I believe that’s what conservatives have believed for as long as I’ve
been alive,” Christie told Semafor. “Where are we headed here now?
If you express disagreement in this country, the government is allowed to
punish you? To me, that’s what I always thought liberals did.”
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