Analysis | Chris Christie, unplugged (2024)

In today’s edition … Ukraine, Israel bill heads to Biden’s desk … Summer Lee prevails in Pennsylvania primary … but first …

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie is no longer running against former president Donald Trump, but he still has choice words for the presumptive Republican nominee, who he hasn’t endorsed. Christie has some interesting stories about the former president, too – including about his fear of prison.

Leigh Ann sat with Christie for a 90-minute conversation at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics last night. Below are some of the highlights of what he said about Trump, President Biden and the impact of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s third-party campaign. The following transcript is only a portion of the conversation.

On whether he has had a change of heart about Trump since the Republican primary:

“One thing I know for sure now is I’m not voting for Trump under any circ*mstances. If he’s the only person on the ballot, I’m not voting for Trump, because I know him too well, and he is wholly unfit to be president of the United States in every way you think.”

On his biggest fear of Trump as president again:

“There’ll be no one around to put guardrails up, and he will be on the vendetta tour against all enemies that he perceives. And that’s a scary thing for the country.”

Okay, so will he vote for Biden?

“I don't think so. No.”

“President Biden, in my view, is past the sell-by date. Seriously, look at him.”

“If the American people are stupid enough to nominate these two guys, doesn’t mean I have to be stupid, too.”

On how he can be so against Trump but not support Biden:

“Right now, I couldn’t say to myself, I think Joe Biden is capable of being president today, let alone at 86.”

“President is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I don’t believe the man’s up to it. And that’s not an observation on his intellect. That’s an observation on his age, and how the aging process has affected him.”

Christie added that if he lived in a battleground state, “I don’t know what the hell I’d do.” He also said he’s “glad” he votes in blue New Jersey, which will not decide the presidency.

On whether Biden has called him since Christie has made it clear he’s not backing Trump:

“He hasn’t.”

“It’s pretty stupid for him not to.”

On whether he’ll go to either nominating convention this summer:

“I don’t think I’m going to the Trump convention in Milwaukee. I don’t think I'll be asked to be there.”

“And on the Biden convention, I’ve never been to a Democratic convention in my life. I don’t think I’ll be invited. And if I were, I would feel a little bit out of place.”

No Labels said its polling showed as many as 72 percent of voters in battleground states wanted a third party. But when it came to Christie …

“Then you get to giving names. Nobody that we put up, including me, got higher than 17 percent. So what happens is [voters] love the idea of someone other than Trump or Biden, but then … once you [put forward an alternative], they don’t want to hear it.

“We looked at it pretty closely. There was no path to winning.”

Another reason Christie decided against No Labels:

“I just really felt, Leigh Ann, if there wasn’t a path to winning, and if I wound up hurting Biden more than I hurt Trump, if I helped elect Trump. There’s certain things I’m willing to live with. That’s not one of them.”

On whether a third-party candidate would help Biden or Trump:

“It depends on the state, but generally speaking would benefit Trump more.”

Christie recounted a story illustrating Trump’s fears of prison:

Christie said Trump asked him in 2004 about whether a New Jersey politician sentenced to 27 months in prison would go to “real prison.”

Christie responded: “He’s going go to the Bureau of Prisons. I have nothing left to do, and if they decide where he goes, he can go anywhere in the country."

“[Trump] reached over and grabbed my arm. We’re sitting next to each other. He said, ‘Oh, my God, Chris. I could never do that. I can never go to jail. They tell you when to go to bed at night and when to wake up in the morning and what to wear and what to do, who you can talk to and what you can eat. I could never do that.’"

“And he had this really ashen look on his face. And I said to him, ‘Well, don’t get yourself in trouble and you don’t have to worry about it.’"

“As I watch him [in court], all I can think about is that conversation because he’s trying to act like this doesn’t bother him. Let me tell you, he is sick to his stomach every day."

“There’s two things that Donald Trump fears more than anything: going to jail or being broke.”

Christie also told a story about why Donald Trump Jr. didn’t want to be the person to have to tell Trump the hard truth during his last presidential campaign:

“I’m in the will and you never will be."

“Think about what that says about Donald Trump. That if his own son thinks that if he tells the truth to his father that the result could be that he’s cut out of the will.”

You can watch the full program here.

Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) easily won her primary last night, defeating a more moderate Democrat, Bhavini Patel, 61 percent to 39 percent.

Patel tried to portray Lee — a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who was an early critic of Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza — as a radical, while Lee ran on her support for traditional Democratic priorities such as abortion rights, Social Security and Medicare.

Other liberals facing primary challenges this year cheered her victory.

“Her victory sends the resounding message to AIPAC and far-right billionaires like Jeff Yass that our seats cannot and will not be bought,” Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who is facing a well-funded primary challenger, said in a statement last night.

Yass is a Republican megadonor who gave $800,000 to a super PAC backing Patel. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has endorsed Bush’s primary challenger, Wesley Bell, and its super PAC is likely to spend in her race, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In another notable race, Janelle Stelson, a longtime local TV news anchor, won the Democratic primary to face Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a former House Freedom Caucus chairman. Trump won the seat by about four points in 2020, and Democrats are optimistic they can compete there.

After months of fits and starts, a $95 billion national security supplemental is headed to the president’s desk to be signed. The funding will provide Ukraine a lifeline in its war against Russia.

It was a long, torturous journey that lasted more than six months, and at times it seemed nearly impossible to overcome Republican demands to first secure the border before sending money to Ukraine, in addition to a growing isolationist movement in the GOP and the unlikely evolution of the House speaker.

But last night the Senate passed the measure, which includes $61 billion for Ukraine, $17 billion for Israel, $9 billion for humanitarian aid for Gaza and other places in need and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region. The bill also imposes a ban of TikTok if its parent company, Chinese-owned ByteDance, doesn’t divest.

Ultimately, the measure passed 79-18, receiving nine more votes than when the Senate passed a different version in February.

“President Biden said in a statement he would sign the bill into law as soon as it crosses his desk on Wednesday, and send aid to Ukraine this week. The funds help him deliver on his promise to the nation’s NATO allies to continue to aid Ukraine as it enters its third year fending off Russia’s invasion,” our colleagues Liz Goodwin and Abigail Hauslohner report.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) today will visit Columbia University, where ongoing pro-Palestinian protests have caused administrators to move many classes online. We suspect he was already in New York City as part of his fundraising swing this week. While at Columbia, he will deliver remarks and hold a news conference.

Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments for a key abortion case that will determine the fate of one of the remaining avenues that the Biden administration has to preserve access to abortion.

The administration is challenging Idaho’s strict abortion law, which bans all abortions except those necessary “to prevent the death of the pregnant woman” and imposes penalties of up to five years on doctors who perform the procedure, our colleagues Dan Diamond, Ann E. Marimow and Caroline Kitchener report. The administration says the state law is preempted by federal law requiring emergency room doctors to perform the procedure in some circ*mstances to protect against emergencies that can still have devastating effects, such as organ failure or loss of fertility, even if death is not imminent.

The question before the justices today is whether the Biden administration can penalize hospitals that don’t perform abortions in emergency situations under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires federally funded hospitals to treat or transfer patients in need of emergency.

Trump’s hush money trial in New York will resume Thursday, with National Enquirer publisher David Pecker returning to the stand.

On Tuesday, Pecker detailed his “catch and kill” strategy of buying negative stories about Trump to prevent them from being published. He is expected to describe more stories that he prevented from becoming public Thursday and further detail the role of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen in the catch-and-kill scheme.

Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud for handling the $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels at the center of this case. Trump stands accused of covering up the payment through falsifying business records, and Cohen is expected to testify against his old boss in coming days.

The prosecution has promised that Cohen’s testimony will be “damning.”

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s ruling on whether Trump violated his gag order through posting on social media is also expected in coming days. The prosecution has identified 10 social media posts it says violated the order and has requested the maximum fine of $1,000 for each violation.

Here’s what else you need to know:

More on the gag order dispute: Tensions flared in a hearing before the jury reconvened. Trump attorney Todd Blanche claimed Trump’s social media posts that violated his gag order were in response to others’ remarks. Merchan told Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with his inability to back up his claim with evidence of posts to which Trump was responding.

More on ‘catch and kill’: In his testimony before the jury Tuesday, Pecker admitted that he had caught and killed negative stories about Trump during Trump’s 2016 campaign, even if he knew they were untrue. In one instance, he paid $30,000 for a false story that Trump had fathered a child with a maid.

More on … Ted Cruz???: Pecker also detailed making up the fictitious 2016 story that Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Tex.) father assassinated John F. Kennedy. Cruz told NBC News that he is “not interested in revisiting ancient history.”

More on Cohen’s redemption arc: Cohen’s public criticisms of Trump and his upcoming testimony have earned him some goodwill among Democrats, but they’re not ready to completely forget the past. Our colleague Peter Jamison takes a look at how Cohen's quest for redemption is being received.

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