Former New Jersey governor and twice-failed presidential candidate Chris Christie whined mightily in a recent interview with the Washington Post about the evils of Donald Trump and also about Joe Biden not contacting him after he vowed he wouldn’t support Trump in November under any circumstances.
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In a WaPo op-ed titled “Chris Christie, Unplugged,” author Leigh Ann Caldwell wrote that while Christie told her he wouldn’t be “voting for Trump under any circumstances,” he would also not be voting for Biden, citing the 81-year-old president’s age.
One thing I know for sure now is I’m not voting for Trump under any circumstances. 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.
OK, so what’s Christie’s biggest fear of a second Trump presidency?
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.
I’ll play Devil’s Advocate. Suppose Trump does win in November, and he does go on a “vendetta tour.” What does Christie think that vendetta tour might look like? Moreover, why does he think Trump would include a stop at his doorstep as part of the tour?
As I watch him [in court], all I can think about is … he’s trying to act like this doesn’t bother him. Let me tell you, he is sick to his s tomach every day. There’s two things that Donald Trump fears more than anything: going to jail or being broke.
Caldwell asked Christie if Biden reached out to him after he declared he wouldn’t support Trump, to which the former New Jersey governor somewhat bizarrely replied:
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He hasn’t. It’s pretty stupid for him not to.
OK, I’ll bite. Why is that? Why is it “pretty stupid” for embattled Biden not to reach out to Christie?
What benefit would Biden’s miserable reelection campaign gain from reaching out to a political has-been who desperately tries to remain relevant? Unlike Richard Nixon and his infamous “enemies list,” I’ve not seen Trump do much more than call his perceived enemies names on social media.
In other words, Chris, relax.
There’s little doubt (if any) that Christie’s obsession with the former president is of the Trump Derangement Syndrome kind. As my colleague Ben Kew reported in mid-February, Christie declared during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that a Trump win in November would constitute a national security risk.
[H]e’s unfit to be president of the United States. It’s one thing, and think it’s right for a president to say to a NATO member, hey, you have to pay the dues you need to pay. I think the American people would expect that of a president, but the problem with Donald Trump is he can’t just stop there.
He’s got to say ‘I would encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they wanted to you.’ That is absolutely inappropriate for a president of the United States or a candidate for president of the United States to be saying, but it is consistent with his love for dictators.
What poses a national security risk is the possibility that he could be president of the United States again. That’s what poses a national security risk because we need to take him at his word.
And the fact is that as I’ve said earlier, Donald Trump when he came into office in 2016 was scared. He was afraid to be president. He was afraid of mistakes he would make. He knew he was not ready and so as a result he listened to a lot of very good people around him … In a second term, he would not.
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How doesn’t Christie know Trump wouldn’t listen to his potential advisors if he wins in November?
He doesn’t; his obsessive loathing of all things Trump renders Christie (and others like him) incapable of accepting the reality that, while the former president might not be the ideal GOP nominee, he’d be a hell of a lot better than any Democrat nominee in countless ways.
Incidentally, speaking of irrelevant political has-beens, Hillary Clinton was unavailable for comment.
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