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SALEM, N.H. — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has a long history of exacting revenge on politicians who cross him, has built a White House run that is almost exclusively a vendetta against former President Donald Trump.
His repeated broadsides include mocking Mr. Trump’s string of federal charges.
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty in recent arraignments.
“I’m from New Jersey, and I was a prosecutor. I’m somewhat familiar with organized crime. This caper looks like it was performed by the stupid Corleone,” he said at a town hall in Salem on Wednesday in reference to the film “The Godfather.”
In the two months since launching his campaign, Mr. Christie has said Mr. Trump is like “a child” and “certainly” committed federal crimes. He denounced the former president for backing Russian President Vladimir Putin despite the atrocities in Ukraine.
Mr. Christie once counted Mr. Trump as a friend and ally. That was before Mr. Trump passed over the former governor and U.S. attorney for a top job in his administration.
Mr. Christie now hopes his assault will chip away at Mr. Trump’s support base, though it’s like trying to knock down a mountain with a hammer.
The former New Jersey governor has climbed from 1% to 8% in New Hampshire polls, but he is still running a distant third place. He is polling more than 30 percentage points behind Mr. Trump and at least 10 points behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Political pros say Mr. Christie’s relentless criticism of Mr. Trump follows a pattern of exacting revenge.
Indeed, Mr. Christie turned against 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, 2014 Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino and 2016 presidential hopeful Scott Walker.
Mr. Christie doesn’t deny his campaign is all about annihilating Mr. Trump.
“I am going out there to take out Donald Trump, but here’s why: I want to win. And I don’t want him to win,” he said at an event early in the campaign.
More than a decade ago, critics suspected that Gov. Christie was punishing Mr. Romney, the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, when he embraced and lavished praise on President Obama on a New Jersey tarmac after Superstorm Sandy.
It was just weeks before the 2012 presidential election, and Romney aides said the episode helped kill the campaign’s momentum by making Mr. Romney look sidelined and helpless while Mr. Obama looked heroic.
The aides said Mr. Christie acted out of revenge after Mr. Romney passed him over as his running mate. Mr. Christie has denied that account.
In 2014, Republican operatives said Mr. Christie, then head of the Republican Governors Association, was withholding financial help for Mr. Walker’s reelection campaign for Wisconsin governor because both men had 2016 White House aspirations.
Mr. Astorino also accused Mr. Christie of withholding RGA funds from his struggling New York gubernatorial campaign. Mr. Astorino said Mr. Christie was in league with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo after the “Bridgegate” scandal when lanes of the George Washington Bridge were inexplicably closed and caused major traffic jams in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Closing the bridge lanes was suspected to be payback to the Fort Lee mayor, who did not support Mr. Christie’s reelection as governor. The incident led to federal conspiracy convictions against three top Christie aides.
Mr. Astorino suggested that Mr. Cuomo “has something” on Mr. Christie, who was never charged or directly linked to the lane-closing incident. At the time, Mr. Astorino was trailing Mr. Cuomo by 40 percentage points. Mr. Christie said the RGA was not funding “lost causes” despite pumping money into other long-shot gubernatorial campaigns.
Mr. Christie shot back at accusations that he withheld funds for punitive and political reasons.
“I invested in people that could win. Rob Astorino couldn’t win, never has won. And that’s why I didn’t invest in him. And, by the way, I invested in Scott Walker in 2010, 2012 and in 2014,” he told The Washington Times last week in New Hampshire.
“With Rob Astorino, he simply couldn’t win,” he said. “My job as RGA chairman was to invest the money of our donors in winning campaigns.”
He listed Maryland’s Larry Hogan, Massachusetts’ Charlie Baker and Illinois’ Bruce Rauner as examples of Republican gubernatorial candidates he said no one thought could win. Backed with RGA funds, they seized victory on Election Day.
Mr. Christie has had a love-hate relationship with Mr. Trump dating back to the 2016 Republican presidential race when the two insulted each other on the debate stage. Mr. Christie shocked the political world by dropping out and becoming the first former Republican presidential candidate to endorse Mr. Trump in 2016.
He turned against Mr. Trump in the week before the election when a videotape surfaced of Mr. Trump making his “grab them by the p——” remark about his star status giving him carte blanche to molest women.
Mr. Christie called the remarks “completely indefensible.” His criticism put him in the doghouse with Mr. Trump, who passed him over for attorney general in favor of Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and later William P. Barr.
Mr. Christie reconnected with Mr. Trump during his White House term, defended him on the talk show circuit and served as a behind-the-scenes adviser. He said he declined consideration for White House chief of staff in 2018 after the resignation of John F. Kelly.
Their relationship fell apart again after the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Christie advised Mr. Trump to accept defeat and concede to President Biden. Mr. Trump instead continued to fight Mr. Biden’s victory until the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. After that, the two men traded barbs and insults. Mr. Christie now calls Mr. Trump a liar and a coward who, if elected to the Republican ticket, will lose to Mr. Biden next year, as he did in 2020.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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