Gothamist

A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.

Gothamist

WNYC Listen Live

Donate

News

Former NJ Gov. Chris Christie, running for president, says 'self-serving mirror hog' Trump hurt U.S.

Nancy Solomon

Published Jun 6, 2023

Modified Jun 6, 2023

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Never miss a story

Email address

By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2014. On June 6, 2023, Christie formally launched his second campaign for president.

Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock

Nancy Solomon

Published Jun 6, 2023

Modified Jun 6, 2023

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

We rely on your support to make local news available to all

Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced his 2024 for president Tuesday night, drawing what he promised would be a sharp contrast with the “lonely self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog” he’d famously endorsed in the 2016 Republican primary.

“The person I am talking about who is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault … is Donald Trump,” Christie said.

Trump has been “Voldemort” to other Republicans angling for the presidency, Christie said. He described them as “pretenders all around us, who want to tell you, ‘Pick me, because I’m kind of like what you picked before, but not quite as crazy,’” but said they were unwilling to name Trump and take him on directly.

Just hours after filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for president, Christie told a small crowd at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics that he’d been unafraid in his political career to admit mistakes. He made a reference to one of the largest sure to dog his campaign – the Bridgegate lane-closing scandal – saying that at times he’d been humiliated to learn he’d trusted the wrong people.

Christie even reminded the crowd the 2016 primary race, when he dropped out after losing badly in New Hampshire, the first official primary that follows the Iowa caucuses, where he also performed poorly.

“You people did that to me in 2016,” Christie told those gathered, drawing one of the few laughs of his speech. He said his daughters remind him of the loss “all the time.”

It had been a spectacular fall for Christie, who was considered a potential Republican front-runner for several years.

But in a speech focused around a vision of American exceptionalism, Christie criticized not only Trump, but President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama for what he said was rhetoric and strategy that divided Americans.

“There's a big argument in our country about whether character matters. And we have leaders who have shown us over and over again, that not only are they devoid of character, but they don't care,” he said.

Christie’s highs and lows

Ben Dworkin, director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship at Rowan University, described Christie as a “tremendous political talent."

When Hurricane Sandy left a path of devastation across New Jersey in 2012, Christie’s handling of the aftermath received high marks and boosted his approval ratings to 70%.

Christie, a former U.S. attorney for New Jersey, was re-elected governor in 2013 in a landslide. But his popularity nosedived in the years that followed, reaching a historic low for any New Jersey governor at 15% by the time he left office in 2018.

His political troubles began two months after his re-election, in January 2014, with a bombshell email that was released about a mysterious traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge.

Christie’s then-deputy chief of staff texted an old friend of the governor’s he’d appointed to a plum job at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the world's busiest bridge. “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” the deputy chief, Bridget Anne Kelly wrote to David Wildstein.

That kicked off a full-blown scandal dubbed “Bridgegate,” which dominated the news in New Jersey right up to the 2016 presidential election. The state spent more than $26 million on outside legal costs defending the individuals involved. Federal prosecutors eventually indicted Kelly and Baroni, and Wilstein pleaded guilty to fraud and civil rights charges.

Wildstein testified during the trial that Christie had been told about the scheme to close lanes to the bridge in order to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing his re-election. Baroni and Kelly were convicted of fraud in federal court, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned those convictions in 2020. Prosecutors agreed to vacate Wildstein’s conviction in 2020 after the ruling about Baroni and Kelly.

Still, during Christie’s first run for president, it wasn’t evident that the Bridgegate scandal hurt him.

‘The people in Iowa didn't care about Bridgegate,” Dworkin said. “Chris Christie in 2016 said he was going to be the candidate who told it like it is. And then Donald Trump got in the race and told it like it is even more so and effectively sucked up all the oxygen for the blunt talking Washington outsider.”

Taking on trump

Now Christie faces the same uphill climb.

“The people who are rooting for Chris Christie right now are MSNBC Republican hosts, the Lincoln Project, you know, these are not conservative Republican primary voters. It's really moderate mainstream Republicans, which there aren't too many of,” said Jeanette Hoffman, president of Marathon Public Affairs and a longtime Republican strategist in New Jersey.

But Christie is taking on a strategy unlike those of other candidates.

“He wants to be the Trump slayer in this campaign. He is aggressive. He's going after Trump, and no other Republican candidate has yet to do that,” Hoffman said. “And he's really good at that.”

Christie’s unrelenting taunts and sharp criticism in the 2016 Republican primary debates helped take down Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida). Now, he hopes to aim those same prosecutorial talents at Trump – arguing he’s unsuitable for the presidency and won't be electable in a general election against Joe Biden, Hoffman said.

But Christie has a complicated relationship with Trump. Two weeks after losing the New Hampshire primary in 2016, he became one of the first mainstream Republicans to endorse Trump. Christie was mocked in a meme that is surely to resurface as he takes on Trump again.

Christie remained an ally of Trump’s for years, frequently describing him as a longtime friend. He helped Trump prepare for the 2020 debates, later saying he caught COVID-19 from Trump in the process. They’ve since traded frequent barbs over Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden and the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.

Finding a message

The Trump endorsement meme surely won’t be the only one to resurface with Christie’s re-entry to politics. Christie’s eight years in office produced many moments worth remembering, as well as potential fodder for negative campaign ads.

The most widely circulated of those came in 2017, when he was photographed sitting on a state beach with his family on the Fourth of July while it was closed to the public because of a state budgetary shutdown.

Christie’s legacy as governor is a mixed bag. He ushered in bail reform, raised awareness of the opioid crisis and worked with the Obama administration on Sandy recovery. But he killed plans for the ARC Tunnel, a second train tunnel under the Hudson that transportation experts said the region desperately needed. The tunnel is now part of the more expansive, more costly and much-delayed Gateway project. He boosted corporate tax breaks and ended his second term with the state in a fiscal crisis.

But the policies and politics in New Jersey are unlikely to be a factor in a national race. The Republican primary is certain to focus on Trump vs.-not-Trump.

“He's got a strong and magnetic personality. And he knows how to play hardball politics,” Dworkin said. “So he has a lot of his own innate skill set going for him. But we'll have to see whether he is able to find a message that's going to resonate and there's time to do that.”

This story has been updated to clarify David Wildstein’s charges and legal history. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy against civil rights. This story has additionally been updated to include more information on Christie’s campaign announcement event.

Tagged

new jersey

Politics