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Chris Christie Has No Regrets

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Throughout ’s Presidency, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie has been an informal adviser to the White House. His embrace of the Trump Administration has been complicated. Christie led Trump’s White House transition team but was removed shortly after Trump won the election. A contributor to ABC News, Christie has frequently criticized Trump for errors of policy and messaging, while keeping a line open to the President, whose election and reëlection he supported. He also helped the President with debate preparation last year, and announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19 one day after Trump said that he had the virus.This week, after Trump continued to contest his election loss and incited a riot on Capitol Hill, Christie condemned the President. “I think that the President’s conduct today was simply incredible,” Christie said. “I could just tell you, as someone who has known him for twenty years, that today breached something that I think none of us should have to put up with by anybody who’s given the honor of being an elected leader in this country.” On Friday, I spoke with Christie, by phone. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the possibility of removing Trump from office, the , and whether Republicans should have broken with the President before this week.Should President Trump be removed from office before his term ends, by either the Twenty-fifth Amendment or an impeachment in the House and a conviction in the Senate?I don’t think either thing is practical, quite frankly, at this point, when we are talking today, with twelve days left. I don’t think either one is practical. I think the important thing to do, for those senior White House officials and Cabinet officials who are still there, is to remember that they took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution as well, and that if they see anything that is off mark they have to sound the alarm.Beyond that, should Congress or the Cabinet make clear that there is a punishment for this type of behavior, even if it is going to be hard to pull off in a certain amount of time? Is it important to send that message?I think that message has been sent. And I think the reaction you saw from the President in the speech he gave last night shows that message has been sent, by members of Congress in their comments on their floor and by the many resignations that have happened, and some that I think are still about to happen.There has been some that the reason he recorded that video was that he was worried about legal consequences, not that he was chastened. But you think it’s both?I’m not going to read his mind. But you are asking whether someone needs to know that there are ramifications. The ramifications are that he is being publicly humiliated by members of his own team resigning on him and allies in Congress like Lindsey Graham saying, “Enough is enough.” I think he gets it.When did you last speak to the President?About three weeks ago.What was his state of mind?I don’t talk about that stuff, Isaac.The former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney recently that Trump had changed over the past eight months. I was wondering if that was your sense.What I would say to you is that I think the last eight weeks has been the worst behavior that I have seen by this President in the four years he has been there, and the one that has angered and disturbed me the most.Can you give us insight into him? You have known him for how many years now?Twenty.So you knew him when he was a businessman, and now a politician. What is it that makes him tick, and how do you understand the last two months?His unwillingness to ever expect defeat, even when it is completely obvious, and his belief that he can will defeat away by denying that it exists. And he has always been that way. So this is nothing new. It’s just a much, much bigger stage, with much more important stakes, than ever before.Do you think he ever had an appreciation for democracy? Is that an issue, too?I think that the President has always believed that a strong executive is really important, and I don’t disagree with that, but there are limits, and I think he has tried to test those.His constitutional views, you mean?Yeah, yeah. And I think there are limits. And he has now gone beyond those limits in the last eight weeks.If ever there was a time to read the Constitution, you know?Well, listen, I am confident that he has, but what I will say to you is, in the end, we are judged by our conduct. And his conduct in the last eight weeks has been completely unacceptable for someone who holds the greatest position the American people can bestow on anyone.Where do you think the Republican Party goes in the post-Trump era, if, indeed, we are in the post-Trump era?Well, listen, we are going to be in the post-Trump era. He is leaving the Presidency. I think the Party is in good shape, from an issues perspective. When you look at what happened in the last election, Republicans added seats in the House and a governorship [of Montana]. The American people supported, in the main, Republican policies. I think the rejection at the top of the ticket was a personal one. So we as a party need to be talking about the issues the way we have and get some of this personality stuff out of it, and really be talking to people in a credible, honest, and calm way about the ways we can improve things in the country. I think, if we do that as a party, by two years from now we will be back in very good shape.Lots of people in 2016 were saying that Trump was stoking white supremacy and was undemocratic. I am curious whether you think the events of this week were inevitable in some sense, and when you think about your early endorsement of him whether you think you should have realized it all along, or whether you think things could have taken a different path.No, I think they always could have taken a different path. My endorsement was based on two things. I was absolutely convinced that there was no one left on that stage in the Republican primary who was going to beat Donald Trump. He was going to be our nominee. And, secondly, I was absolutely committed to Hillary Clinton not being President of the United States. So, given my relationship with Donald Trump over all those years, I felt like if I got in early and helped him I could have influence in making him a better candidate and, ultimately, a better President. And I think I did both those things. But, in the end, the person who holds the job is the person who makes the decisions. So, no, I have no second thoughts in doing what I did in supporting him. American democracy is ultimately not about voting for who you want to vote for. It’s about voting for who is left.I know you have denied that he is a racist and given him some cover on issues like birtherism and the comment about the “Mexican judge.” Do you have regrets along those lines?No. First of all, I never gave him any cover on birtherism. I don’t know where you get that from.You said, “The birther issue is a done issue. I’ve said it’s a done issue for a long time, and Donald Trump has said it’s a done issue now.” And you said, “It wasn’t like he was talking about it on a regular basis.” This was in 2016.Yeah, but that’s not giving him cover for what he did. Those questions were asked in 2016, I think. The birther issue was no longer an issue. So, listen, I did not give him cover for anything that he did. I don’t believe the President is a racist, and I never have believed that. But the point is that he has to be held to account for the things that he has done during the time he has been in the Presidency, and I have been pretty outspoken over the past four years when I have disagreed. And, when I agree, I say I agree. My record on what I say is all documented, because it all happens on Sunday morning on ABC. You can go back and take all the quotes and put them in the proper timing and context. I don’t think it is fair to say I gave him or anyone else cover on birtherism.I had seen an you did with Jake Tapper where you shot down his question about it when Trump had still been bringing up the issue. That’s why I brought it up.Again, I shot down the issue because I thought it was a nonissue. The other way you could look at that quote, Isaac, is that I was criticizing Trump for having anything ever to do with it. So you can interpret it however you want.I will definitely read between the lines.Yeah. I have been pretty clear that I never thought there was any credence to the whole birtherism movement. And still don’t.And, with things like the “Mexican judge” comment, it seemed like much of the Party’s response, if not to defend him, was to blame the media or say it was being blown out of proportion. In hindsight, should people have been paying more attention to these types of things?I am the guy who got him to put out the statement saying he was no longer going to discuss the judge, and leave it to his lawyers to resolve the lawsuit. And then the lawsuit got settled.I didn’t know that.That’s the role I tried to play. When tough conversations needed to be had, I’d go in and have them. I didn’t give him any cover on the “Mexican judge” either, Isaac.Oh, O.K., because I had just read what you said in 2016 about the “Mexican judge” incident. You said, “Those are Donald’s opinions and he has a right to express them the same way anybody else has a right to express any of their views regarding how they’re treated in the civil or criminal courts in this country. That’s part of what free speech is all about.” You also said, “The media loves to pay attention to this stuff and work it up.” That’s what I was referring to.Right, and all that is true. But what is also true is that I got him off the issue and got him to put out a statement where he apologized for what he said and said he would have no other comment on the judge. Go back and look at the statement that was put out. [The statement does not an apology.]You have hit on something, which is that you have been seen as someone who could talk to Trump and get him to moderate or be more reasonable, as you say you did for this statement. But there’s the larger question: Is a statement where Trump says the right thing and agrees not to talk about it for a certain amount of time really the solution to Trump, or should Republicans have been looking for a bigger solution—He was elected President, Isaac. What was the bigger solution?Well, he was also impeached, and then Republicans kept him in office.Well, listen, I don’t agree with the premise of what you’re saying. What I am saying to you is: what you want was for Donald Trump to have been removed from office. I get that. But the votes were not there for that, and certainly not based upon the call with the Ukraine. And, quite frankly, people would have a lot more credibility if they didn’t say that every action that was taken was impeachable. And what the Democrats did, in my view, was cheapen impeachment, and I said that at the time.I’m asking because you know the way Republicans dealt with Trump, and it doesn’t seem quite fair to say Democrats just wanted to go after him and Republicans had no choices.You said that—I didn’t say that. Isaac, listen, I don’t know what this is going to be. But, if what you are going to do is put words in my mouth, what I will do is just discontinue this, and I will say I am not participating. This is ridiculous. You are putting words in my mouth. I thought this was supposed to be a Q. &amp; A.—you give questions, I give answers. It seems like what you want to do is the Q and the A. If you want to do both, I will get off the phone and you can talk to yourself.O.K. It felt like you were saying Republicans couldn’t really do anything, and I was trying to raise the question that maybe there was a better solution than occasionally getting Trump to put out the right statement.I understand that your suggested solution was removal from office over the Ukrainian phone call. And a majority of the American people didn’t believe that was appropriate. [Polls have showed that the country was on the issue of removal.]We were also talking about the “Mexican judge” thing and birtherism, which were before he became President.Right, and the choice was between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.There could have been—No, there couldn’t have been. There were sixteen of us on that stage, including me. We all tried to win. He won. And, when he is the nominee, it comes down to a choice between the Republican nominee and the Democratic nominee. And, in that instance, the Republicans were going to be with the Republican nominee. A lot of the things that happened during the Trump Administration are policy goals that Republicans have been trying to achieve for quite some time, and that all has to be looked at in that context.Right, but now we are seeing Republicans say that even though he is a Republican, and he is our President, there are certain things that have gone too far. If this sort of outpouring had occurred earlier, could it have prevented some of the things we have seen over the past four years?You can throw as many hypotheticals out there as you want, but what happened on Wednesday didn’t happen two years ago or three years ago. It happened on Wednesday. My focus has been on the conduct of the last eight weeks. And, to me, the conduct of the last eight weeks has been beneath the office that he holds.And the conduct of the last four years?No. is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he is the principal contributor to Q. &amp; A., a series of interviews with public figures in politics, media, books, business, technology, and more.The best of The New Yorker, every day, in your in-box, plus occasional alerts when we publish major stories.

Throughout ’s Presidency, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie has been an informal adviser to the White House. His embrace of the Trump Administration has been complicated. Christie led Trump’s White House transition team but was removed shortly after Trump won the election. A contributor to ABC News, Christie has frequently criticized Trump for errors of policy and messaging, while keeping a line open to the President, whose election and reëlection he supported. He also helped the President with debate preparation last year, and announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19...

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Isaac Chotiner

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Chris Christie Has No Regrets

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