Talk about leaving it all on the field. Wednesday night’s debate may very well be the last Republican presidential primary debate he qualifies for (if another one even takes place), but Chris Christie took full advantage.
While other candidates dabbled with criticizing Donald Trump, Christie was, once again, the only candidate to consistently and forcefully go after the frontrunner, accusing his opponents of being too “timid” to take on the former president.
“I’m in this race because the truth needs to be spoken,” Christie declared. “This is a guy who just said this past week he wants to use the Department of Justice to go after his enemies when he gets in there. The fact of the matter is he’s unfit to be president.”
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Christie arguably won the debate on points, but because his odds of winning the Republican nomination are minuscule, his greatest contribution might turn out to be serving as a shield for Nikki Haley. She came into the debate with a target on her back, and took a lot of arrows early on. As a result, she probably delivered her least impressive performance of the year. It’s hard to imagine how bad her night would have been, absent Christie.
Indeed, although Christie mocked everyone on the stage for failing to go after Trump (and he specifically criticized Haley for saying Trump had been “good on trade”), Christie spent most of the night running interference for Haley—a candidate who has a much better shot at winning the Republican nomination in 2024.
This may turn out to be an important development.
Earlier this week, I interviewed Josh Kraushaar, the editor-in-chief of Jewish Insider, a contributor to Axios and Fox News Radio, and a very smart political analyst. During our conversation, Kraushaar raised the likelihood that everyone—including Christie—might attack Haley. In response, I noted that it would be amazing if Christie’s contribution to the 2024 GOP primary was to destroy Haley the way he took down Marco Rubio during an infamous 2016 debate moment in New Hampshire.
If nothing else, stopping Haley’s momentum would be ironic, inasmuch as Christie’s whole reason for running this time around is presumably to prevent Trump from getting a second term.
As it turns out, rather than shivving Haley, Christie did her a service by turning his brutal debating skills loose on her rivals: Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Interestingly, he used some of the same tactics that worked for him in 2016.
As you might recall, Christie’s destruction of Rubio involved pointing out that Rubio had a “memorized 25-second speech” he kept going back to as a crutch.
Similarly, this time around, Christie exposed DeSantis’ habit of giving rehearsed speeches while parrying direct questions. For example, after DeSantis dodged a question on whether the U.S. should send troops to rescue hostages taken by terrorists, Christie said, “This is the problem with the first three debates. Ron gets asked a question and he doesn’t answer.”
Then, when a moderator turned the tables and asked Christie his position on the subject, Christie quickly responded: “You’re damn right I’d send the American Army in to get our people back.”
During another occasion, when DeSantis seemed unwilling to directly say whether Trump was too old to be president, Christie asked, “Why doesn’t he just answer the question?”
Of course, Christie’s sharpest elbows were reserved for Vivek Ramaswamy, a man who seemingly goes out of his way to annoy everyone in his wake.
“Let me tell you something, this is the fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America. So shut up for a little while,” he said.
Christie also bailed out Haley when Ramaswamy attempted a cheap gotcha moment, saying, “One thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of them could even state for you three provinces in Eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to actually fight for.”
As some on Twitter noted, Haley was left with a blank stare when challenged by Ramaswamy to name the provinces, even though his central premise—that Haley ever wanted to send troops to Ukraine—seems to be dubious.
It was Christie who played the white knight by bailing her out and changing the subject, thus hastening the end of this embarrassing moment.
While much of Christie’s help was subtle, at one point, Christie specifically defended Haley’s honor, telling Ramaswamy that she “is a smart, accomplished woman” and to “stop insulting her.”
I recently wrote a column saying that Christie should get out of the race before the New Hampshire primary because staying in could spoil the state for Haley. I still believe that’s true. But Haley should be glad he didn’t get out before this debate.
Not only did Christie not destroy Haley, he probably saved her. In fact, during the debate, Kraushaar said he’s “Starting to see the seeds of a possible Christie endorsement of Haley next month…”
He’s not the only one.
Eight years ago, Christie did Trump’s dirty work by vanquishing Rubio just before the New Hampshire primary. Soon after, he endorsed Donald Trump. This time around, he appears to be on a mission for redemption.
But the question has long lingered: When push came to shove, would Christie be willing to sacrifice his personal ambitions—if that was the price to try and slow or stop Trump, a man he sees as an existential threat to American democracy?
I think we now have that answer.
