Chris Christie, as you may have heard, wanted to be Donald Trump's vice-presidential pick. It didn't work out.
Now the New Jersey governor is making very clear just how he feels about being left at the political altar. This from a speech Christie gave to the Michigan delegation at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland:
Oomph. "Big mouth!" Also, who could Christie be talking about when he says Trump needed "a partner who governed"? It's one of life's great mysteries.
Worth noting: Other reports out of that meeting suggested Christie was more conciliatory. “I am really relieved that Donald Trump picked a governor to be his running mate," according to the Philadelphia Inquirer report.
That outburst comes less than 24 hours after Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was overheard by the Weekly Standard's John McCormack talking about Christie's state of mind. Here's how McCormack described it:
While minding my own business at the Starbucks inside the Westin hotel this morning, I saw a man engage Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in conversation about the VP selection process. The man, whom I couldn't identify, suggested that Pence was a smart pick and Gingrich would've been a disaster."Christie was livid, right?" the man said at one point. "Yeah," Manafort replied.
Christie's anger and bitterness shouldn't be terribly surprising. As we've written in this space a million times before, no one risked more than Christie for Trump.
He endorsed the real estate mogul in late February when it was still very much an open question as to whether Trump would win the nomination. He endured all sorts of slings and arrows — on the Internet and elsewhere — for his perceived "lackey" role to Trump.
Through it all, Christie stayed steadfast in support of Trump — insisting that he had known Trump for a very long time and that he thought The Donald was the best choice to be president.
Even some of Christie's closest allies struggled to understand what his fierce loyalty toward Trump — even as Trump seemed to treat Christie as a sort of affable fall guy — was about. The only conclusion anyone arrived at was that Christie has pushed all his chips into the center of the table on a bet that being Trump's staunchest defender would be rewarded when it came time to picking a vice president.
That bet wound up being a big loser. And Christie is just now coming to terms with the fact that he has flushed his political career down the toilet for, well, not much.
If you think I am exaggerating about Christie's future, check out these numbers in his home state.
In a word: dismal.
And what does Christie have to hope for? His best case scenario is a slot in a Trump White House — attorney general? — although given how Trump passed him over for VP, I'm not sure Christie should feel particularly confident about much in that regard. Worst-case scenario for Christie is he simply disappears into the political ether. That would mark a stunning fall for someone who, as recently as four years ago, was seen as one of the brightest stars in the national party.
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