LISTEN: Chris Christie Gets Snippy With Hugh Hewitt for Relentlessly Grilling Him on Why He Hasn’t Dropped Out of 2024 Race
Republican presidential candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke with radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, but he spent the entire time defending his decision to stay in the race.
The full 10-minute conversation with Christie was posted on Hewitt’s site, and the host promoted it on Twitter/X saying: “Fair to guess he’s not very happy with me today.” Well, spending an entire segment asking someone why they won’t just drop out because they’re going to lose might have something to do with that?
Hewitt has interviewed Christie on many, many occasions — by Christie’s calculation, “probably a hundred times.” So there’s a chance that the snippy nature of the conversation was just some friendly poking on Hewitt’s part. But it’s also fair to say that Christie does not like to be framed as responsible for handing the nomination to former President Donald Trump — Christie’s nemesis — just by staying in the race. Take this exchange:
Hewitt: [I]t seems to me at this point, given the urgency in the world and the timing of the campaign, that the amount of spectrum left for major changes as the campaign has gone to almost zero absent a natural event of some sort that I don’t wish on anybody, and that therefore, Chris Christie, if [former Ambassador to the United Nations] Nikki Haley loses New Hampshire by 5 percent, and you’ve got 10 percent or more, you will have elected Donald Trump president. Are you okay with that?
Christie: Well, first of all, I don’t think that anyone at this juncture, if you’re going to be a slave to these polls, Hugh, that have happened beforehand, the polls that if they were right, [former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton would be in her second term. You know, if you’re going to be a slave to that, there’s nobody who’s within 5 percent of Donald Trump in any credible poll in New Hampshire at the moment.
Hewitt: But you brought up polling first when you said your polls showed 15 percent of your voters would go for Donald Trump. So you’re using them.
Christie: That’s because you asked.
Hewitt: All right, so what do your polls show?
Christie: I’m not saying that that is a definite occurrence. You asked me if I had any reasons to believe that any Christie voter would vote for Trump, and so I gave you a statistic that we have. I don’t know whether that’s accurate or not.
Hewitt: All right, true enough. I love arguing with a prosecutor.
Then it came to who Christie would vote for in the general election if it came down to Trump and President Joe Biden, and Christie got spicy:
Hewitt: If it’s Donald Trump, Republican nominee against Joe Biden, Democratic nominee, who will Chris Christie vote for?
Christie: At this point, I wouldn’t vote for either one of them.
Hewitt: What would you do?
Christie: I’d vote down ballot.
Hewitt: But then, you’d abdicate?
Christie: I mean, Hugh, Hugh, this is not news. I’ve been saying this from the beginning. I’m the guy who didn’t raise my hand on the stage when they asked me if you would support him if he was a convicted felon.
Hewitt: Yeah, I know, but support…
Christie: So I don’t understand how we’re in… I have to tell you the truth, Hugh. You have interviewed me probably a hundred times. I’ve never had a less substantive interview with you in my life.
Hewitt: But it’s actually the most substantive interview! We’re down to the quarter stretch!
Christie: No. This is, this is not news, Hugh. I didn’t raise my hand in August, but you think you’re making news here, then you’re not paying attention.
You can listen to the full interview above via The Hugh Hewitt Show.
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