If Chris Christie says something, it must be true.
Unless you catch him on a so-called “hot” mic saying nasty things about fellow Republican 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley, a woman who the rotund former New Jersey governor staunchly defended in the December version of the Republican National Committee’s presidential candidates’ debates, yet didn’t seem to hold Christie’s genuine respect not even a month afterwards.
You may recall that, in the December event, Christie didn’t take kindly to Vivek Ramaswamy’s and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s insinuations and outright accusations that Haley was corrupt, whereupon the New Jerseyan scolded them for daring to question the woman’s integrity. All of that, and then Christie was caught red-handed (or is it red-faced?) when he was recorded talking with someone about the primary race without him realizing it.
My, my, how the truth fairy comes out when a blowhard politician believes he’s off the record and therefore uninhibited to say what he really thinks. At any rate, Christie now claims that his Haley “getting smoked” remark was a complete mistake, as though the brash talking former prosecutor has had a sudden epiphany about Nikki’s chances and somehow figures people will forget the whole thing and forgive him for speaking out of turn, even if he didn’t know anyone could hear him at the time, or that his words would echo in the halls of the early state primaries.
It should be noted that Christie didn’t apologize for what he’d blurted out about Haley. He just explained it was a “mistake” – to ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos no less – and that he discovered he was speaking on a hot mic by being called by his son (who was out of the country at the time).
To make a long story short, Christie’s – still – saying a lot of things these days, even though people – still -- aren’t listening to him and his political credibility is just north of zero when discussing the status of the Republican race, or anything else for that matter. Poor ol’ Garden State Chris literally can’t keep his foul thoughts to himself, especially about near-certain Republican nominee Donald Trump.
What’d Christie do this time? In an article titled “Christie says second Trump term will be ‘vendetta presidency’”, Elizabeth Crisp reported at The Hill earlier this week:
“Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is sounding the alarm, claiming a second term for former President Trump would create a ‘huge personnel problem’ in the White House. ‘One, it’ll be a huge personnel problem of people who have no business being in senior positions in the federal government,’ Christie told ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos in a recent interview. ‘And then secondly, I think we have to take him at his word. This is gonna be the vendetta presidency,’ he added...
“[Christie] said Trump didn’t expect to win the [2016] election and was intimidated by the presidency, which led him to bring experienced people into the administration. Whether you agree with their policies, these are really solid, experienced people in government,’ he said, but predicted that a second Trump administration would be ‘mayhem, absolute mayhem.’
“’I cannot imagine the crew that he’ll put together,’ he said.”
Wow, Christie’s putting his gigantic foot in his mouth again, and he can’t even use a hot mic as an excuse for what he’s uttering now. While most conservatives were pleased with Trump’s first term and ecstatic about the administration’s policy direction, it’s safe to say lovers of liberty and limited government and efficient execution of the laws were less than enthralled with a good chunk of Trump’s personnel selections.
All throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump had promised that he’d hire the “best people” to staff his administration, then made huge mistakes early on by listening too intently to the swamp establishment by bringing in a number of “creatures” who sabotaged him from the inside. For example, Trump went with Reince Priebus as his co-chief-of-staff in the opening days, which didn’t set the right tone for achieving reform in the political operation.
Trump came in as a bull-in-a-China-shop system disruptor and instead ended up trying to make nice with intra-party opposition. The folks Trump relied on, in many cases, weren’t loyal, thought they were smarter than him and whispered to anyone who would listen that he didn’t know what he was doing. As a result, these turncoats went their own way, oftentimes leaking to the establishment media and causing public relations headaches where there shouldn’t have been any.
“Experience in Washington”, as Christie coined it, is usually a double-edged sword because the ruling elites believe more in their personal power to move things and/or perpetuate “the way it’s always been done” rather than implementing the policies emanating from the guy who was elected to sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
Trump desperately sought to keep the promises he’d made on the campaign trail but also realized that the malaise in Washington was caused by intrenched bureaucracy that was neither accountable nor, in many instances, traceable.
All one needs to do is look at the impeachment farce Trump endured based on the infamous phone conversation he conducted with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that subsequently was used by a self-interested “whistleblower” insider to insinuate he’d committed a serious crime. The Russian collusion farce was also helped along by deep state enemies who just wanted him gone.
In other words, if Trump seeks to bring in loyal outsiders to staff his “new” White House next year, it should only be seen as a good thing. Put it this way, would Trump’s hand-chosen support personnel be any worse than whatever Obama leftovers are propelling the senile Joe Biden executive branch today? Why would “experience” be necessary in such instances? Besides, Trump’s “crew” would instantly be further along by approaching these subjects with a fresh point-of-view.
When Trump has been asked how he intends to avoid the personnel pitfalls (usually couched in terms of why he didn’t fire COVID incompetent liar Dr. Anthony Fauci and/or FBI Director Christopher Wray after it was well-known that the intelligence agencies were against him), Trump the candidate replies that he’s learned from his mistakes from his first go-round. Basically, it goes a little like this (paraphrasing):
“When I first came to Washington, I didn’t know hardly anyone, but after being president for four years and dealing with everyone in both parties, I recognize who the bad ones are. I’ll be able to start from the beginning next year and I won’t make the same errors.”
Some establishment commentators have also forecasted that Trump would have trouble convincing people to staff his administration due to his unsavory reputation for handling people close to him. It’s probably accurate that Trump is hard to keep happy, especially when he demands results and action and gets fed a lot of excuses from people who simply don’t want to carry out his wishes.
Does this sound like former Trump Attorney General William Barr to you?
It doesn’t seem plausible that Trump would have much, if any, difficulty in finding many smart folks who’d be more than willing to sign-up with the Trump White House 2.0 and work to undo and hopefully correct much of the damage that’s been inflicted by the heinous Biden honks in the past three-plus years. Most of the establishmentarians have already been weeded out or identified, so theoretically, the transition would be smoother this time instead of bumpier.
As I wrote earlier, if Chris Christie says a second Trump administration would be “Mayhem, absolute mayhem”, we should take him at his word. Who doesn’t believe that a little mayhem would be beneficial in today’s Washington? Maybe Chris is a secret Trump fan and only made the statement because he thought it would help Trump?
The system is so badly contorted that “mayhem” is called for. Take Trump’s legal problems as a test case. Numerous well-funded left-wing groups are suing (or prosecuting) Trump for a variety of trumped-up offenses and they’ve had success just by “forum shopping” and seeking out the friendliest judges and juries. One needn’t look far to find locales that would be receptive to such spurious legal shenanigans, better known these days as “lawfare.”
The Federalist’s Joy Pullmann wrote an excellent piece titled “Democrats Work To Strip All Opponents Of Representation In Court”, where she detailed the concerted and intentional effort on behalf of left-wingers to sue conservatives for anything they can make stick, then literally drown them in legal fees defending themselves.
It’s happening more and more.
Lawfare can best be described as, “If we can’t vote them out, we’ll bleed them dry through the courts.” Never Trumpers and Democrats make hay about how much Donald Trump is spending in legal fees to defend himself as though it was a badge of honor to watch as abuse of the “justice” system is justifiable just because the hated Trump and MAGA are involved. Little heed is given to the questionable – at best – basis for these absurd claims.
All that matters to them is it’s targeting Trump, and therefore, it’s for a good cause. One gentleman quoted in Pullmann’s piece (Andrew Kloster, Rep. Matt Gaetz's General Counsel) concluded, “The only way to stop this weaponization of the legal system is to counterattack.”
Fight fire with fire. But that’s a lot of fire needed. Somebody had better wake up soon.
Chris Christie has said many times that he would not vote for Trump in this year’s election if the former president is convicted of a felony, but what if that conviction is the result of blatant leftist bias (like many of the January 6 guilty verdicts)? Can’t we spot a sell-job when we see one?
Establishment hangers-on like Chris Christie aren’t worth a whole lot these days, but the leftist corporate media sure loves to tap Christie’s oversized pool of Trump-hate to try and dislodge the sure-Republican nominee from his MAGA base of voters. Here’s thinking the smear campaign won’t succeed, but it also won’t keep the naysayers from trying. Be aware.
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