Donald Trump’s biggest foe is now dropping out of the 2024 Presidential Race. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced Wednesday that he was suspending his presidential campaign, just hours before another Republican debate (which he had not qualified to participate in).
In his announcement speech from Windham, New Hampshire, Christie started by discussing how he had always been in the race to tell the truth about Trump and his destruction and divisiveness. He noted that others, like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, have been lukewarm in attacking Trump, as they seemingly do not want to alienate his supporters. Christie dedicated much of his speech talking about ambition and the need to put the country before one’s self.
“For all the people who have been in this race, who have put their own personal ambition ahead of what’s right, they will ultimately have to answer the same questions that I had to answer after my decision in 2016,” Christie said. “Those questions don’t ever leave. In fact, they’re really stubborn. They stay.”
Christie also criticized pundits and the media for thinking Trump is a foregone conclusion as the GOP nominee. He admitted that he made a mistake dropping out in 2016 and supporting Trump, so how he’s handling this exit is intriguing. He knows that winning matters and seemingly believes that another Republican candidate besides Trump genuinely has a shot.
Christie stated that “in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again. And that’s more important than my own personal ambition,” while calling out other unnamed politicians who he says know better but still continue to endorse Trump. These people are scared and willing to throw our very democracy down the drain for political gain.
While I don’t support Christie, I am happy to see him go after his own party. He explicitly said that Republicans need to take responsibility for the role they have played in getting us to where we are. He even added Biden’s former slogan, saying that we need to fight for the soul of the party and soul of the nation. Fascinating tactic I suppose.
Christie ended by going after Trump personally, saying the former president feeds off of anger because he is an angry person. He went on and on about what he deems “petty politics” and how it is hurting us at home and internationally. Christie admitted that governing amidst “real disagreements” is hard, as he did it a lot as governor of New Jersey, but insists it can be done if we believe.
This is all inspiring to a degree, but I still question the intelligence of someone who voted for Donald Trump twice. Will Republican voters listen to him or even care? It isn’t looking good on that front but who knows.
Christie brought up the moment on the debate stage in Milwaukee when most GOP candidates raised their hands and said they would STILL vote for Trump EVEN IF he was convicted. Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and others, could not have ever imagined that they would be there having a conversation about if a criminal could be the President, Christie exclaimed. He is right though, that there’s not an explicit law against much of what Trump has done because no one really thought someone would do these things and that people would support them. This is a harrowing reminder of how deeply we have fallen, and how much more we can fall if Trump is to get in office again.
But wait, there’s more!
Amazingly, Christie managed to upstage his own announcement, as he was caught on a hot mic, going after Haley and DeSantis.
He said Haley is going to “get smoked” and that she’s “not up to this.” He also said that DeSantis is petrified but the audio didn’t go on further to explain exactly what that meant. How this plays out with him and the other candidates will be very riveting. Even towards the end of his speech he also made a funny quip about how the Civil War was of course caused by slavery. A remark aimed at Haley who couldn’t directly answer that question recently.
So what does this all mean—and why now? Why did Christie not wait until the New Hampshire primary, where the anti-Trump vote was expected to be the most significant of the early states? While Iowa’s caucus is just next week, Christie wasn’t expected to be a major player in that state. He did have support in New Hampshire, whose primary is next after Iowa, but dropping out now allows his supporters to back another candidate that’s likely not Trump.
So who will he endorse? According to CNN, 65% of his voters said Haley is their second choice, though his hot mic comments calling her not up to the job undercut any potential endorsement that might have come otherwise.
We’ll have our eye on this to see if Christie’s dropping out helps boost Haley or if it proves not to have any real impact in the end.
(featured image: Sophie Park/Getty Images)
