Self-styled truthteller Chris Christie is not quite as truthful as he claims.
Christie appeared on Fox’s Your World show yesterday for a post-debate interview, after reportedly getting banned from Fox’s post-debate coverage Wednesday night. Host Neil Cavuto hyped him as having had “two very successful terms” as New Jersey governor.
Asked whether he had expected to get booed on the debate stage, Christie said, “You go into a debate hall, a big debate hall like that, and you’re going to say hard truths about the former leader of the party, and so there are going to be some people in there who are upset about that. They don’t want to hear those truths.”
“In a few hours, Donald Trump will be out on bail in four different jurisdictions,” Christie continued. “We’re kidding ourselves” if the GOP thinks Trump can beat President Biden. “He’ll probably be on trial in at least two of those cases between now and Election Day of 2024, and Joe Biden is begging for Donald Trump.”
“I’m willing to tell the truth about Donald Trump,” Christie claimed. “Someone needs to say it so I did.”
But Christie also played to the MAGA crowd: “I’m willing to tell the truth about Joe and Hunter Biden, and I have a record from being elected and re-elected in a blue state defeating a Democratic incumbent,” he said. “There’ll be no members of the Christie family in government when I’m president, and there’ll be no members of the Christie family who will profit from my government service, and neither Joe Biden or Donald Trump can say that about their families.”
No, the Bidens are not like the Trumps. But Cavuto let the false equivalence go unchallenged.
Cavuto did ask whether Christie thinks “you don’t have a chance at this nomination.
“Not at all,” Christie said. “The hall is a small group of people compared to our Republican party across the country.” He brought up a poll in New Hampshire, saying, “I’m now comfortably in second place at 14% of the vote. … I’ve gone from zero to 14 in New Hampshire.”
“I’m incredibly encouraged,” Christie claimed. “Some of the folks who were doing the loudest booing are the people who are invested in the swamp that Donald Trump helped to create for them in Washington, D.C. He said he was going to drain the swamp, and all he did was rearrange it, and rearrange it so that members of his own family could do the same things that Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family are doing right now.”
Christie also defended his refusal to support Trump. “I don’t believe it’s right for a convicted felon to be the president of the United States,” he said, though he also acknowledged that Trump is presumed innocent in all four of his criminal cases.
Referring to his career as U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Christie boasted that he’s 130-0 in winning political corruption cases “like this one.”
“I don’t think any Republican should want our standard bearer, let alone our president of the United States, to be a convicted felon,” Christie said.
Unfortunately for Christie, that is not what today’s Republican party looks like.
You can watch Christie’s consolation prize interview below, from the August 24, 2023 Your World.