Chris Christie’s botched farewell aging well with Trump supporters

URBANDALE, Iowa — Thanks for the parting gift.

That’s the message Donald Trump’s supporters have for Chris Christie days after he — in a hot-mic moment — was caught skewering Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.

Gary Leffler, a Trump campaign volunteer, was still chuckling about it days later.

“What a knucklehead, what a knucklehead,” Mr. Leffler said after showing up for an event with Donald Trump Jr. “It is just like a gift to Trump, right?”

“It is just like no matter how they attack him, whatever they say, it is just like they are playing checkers and he is playing chess,” he said.

Mr. Christie prided himself on criticizing Mr. Trump and envisioned building a coalition of voters who were ready for a fresh start.

But the message fell flat with the majority of Republican primary voters, including in New Hampshire where he hoped moderates and independents would put him over the top. 

In his last act as a candidate, Mr. Christie thought dropping his campaign would help him knock Mr. Trump with a clarion voice — except he muddied the message before he even took the stage.

Mr. Christie could heard on a campaign livestream predicting Ms. Haley was going to get “smoked” and that Mr. DeSantis sounded “petrified” when he called him.

Mr. Trump and his allies are still lapping it up. Mr. Trump has joked Mr. Christie could get back into his good graces. His son, Donald Trump, Jr. described the episode as “sort of amazing” and said he was surprised “Ron DeSantis called to thank” Mr. Chrisitie before he suspended his campaign.

“So you thank a neocon …. put in there to go after the American First Movement, and then Chris says the other part out loud: of course, Nikki has no chance,” he said. “Like if the deep state could make a candidate in the lab as … a fake conservative, you get Nikki Haley.”

“She would be a great candidate for the Republican Party - like in 2008,” Donald Trump Jr. said.