Chris Christie

Dear Commons Community,

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wasted no time going after Donald Trump while launching his presidential campaign on yesterday, calling the former president and current Republican primary front-runner a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog” and arguing that he’s the only one who can stop him.

Christie began his run with a town hall in New Hampshire. The former governor and federal prosecutor ran for president and lost to Trump in 2016 and went on to become a close off-and-on adviser before breaking with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election.

Now that Trump is trying again for the White House, Christie is out to do everything in his power to deny him. After criticizing other Republican primary rivals for being afraid to directly challenge Trump, Christie made clear that he had no such concerns.

“The person I am talking about, who is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault, 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,” he told a small, mostly friendly crowd at Saint Anselm College.

“A lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog is not a leader,” Christie said, saying Trump “made us smaller by dividing us even further and pitting us one against the other.”

But he also said President Joe Biden “is doing the same thing, just on the other side.” He noted that he’d known Biden for decades and said the president is “out of his depth” because “he’s not the guy he used to be,” referencing the 80-year-old Biden’s advanced age.

But Christie’s chief target was Trump.

“There’s a big argument in our country right now about whether character matters, and we have leaders who have shown us over and over again that not only are they devoid of character, they don’t care.” Christie said. “We can’t dismiss the question of character anymore, everybody. If we do, we get what we deserve, and we will have to own it.”

Christie enters a growing primary field that already includes Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. Former Vice President Mike Pence will be formally launching his own campaign in Iowa on Wednesday.

During his time as governor, Christie established a reputation as a fighter with a knack for creating viral moments of confrontation. But he faces an uphill battle to the nomination in a party that remains closely aligned with the former president, despite Trump’s reelection loss in 2020 and Republicans’ poorer-than-expected showing in the 2022 midterm elections.

Christie argues that unless top Republicans dare confront Trump, there will be a repeat of the 2016 GOP primary, when Trump rolled over a host of alternatives with more political experience who split the support of voters opposing him.

Christie said Tuesday that the only way to win the GOP nomination was to topple Trump, but he was in the race to win the White House, not just the primary. He made fun of Trump’s failed promise to wall off the entire southern U.S. border and have Mexico pay for it but said that voters who believed Trump in 2016 now knew better.

Anti-Trump Republicans are particularly eager to see Christie spar with Trump on a debate stage — if, of course, Trump agrees to participate in primary debates and Christie meets the stringent fundraising criteria set by the Republican National Committee for participation.

I don’t know that Christie will be able to win the nomination but he will make life uncomfortable for Trump which is more than what the other Republican candidates are doing!

Tony

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