Chris Christie is on a mission to take down ‘scared’ Donald Trump – starting with first debate

Could a man who once helped mould Donald Trump’s rise to power be the one to finally break his hold on the Republican Party?

Chris Christie is betting so.

The former New Jersey governor is running a combative, anti-establishment campaign on behalf of the establishment — the old Republican establishment, the Reagan GOP, against what is now the actual leadership of the Republican Party: Donald Trump, and his inner circle of loyalists, attack dogs and sycophants.

His wager? That he understands the strengths and weaknesses of Mr Trump better than any candidate on the debate stage, an understanding which combined with a punchy, charismatic frontman can spell doom for the Trump campaign. It’s a risky bargain, but surely no riskier than the respective gambits being waged quietly by every single Republican presidential candidate apparently hoping that Mr Trump will drop out under a mountain of legal battles or otherwise spontaneously implode before it is too late.

As it stood ahead of the first Republican debate, Mr Christie is beginning to see at least the whisperings of success. He’s overtaken Ron DeSantis and others in polls of New Hampshire, the first primary state where he hopes to be competitive for the top slot. And, perhaps most importantly, he has been credited at least in the media as being the reason why Donald Trump is skipping the debates entirely.

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman who served on the House January 6 select committee, has said that Mr Trump is “scared to death” of Mr Christie.

“Because I think Chris Christie is going to wipe the floor with him,” he added.

Mr Kinzinger called Mr Trump a “coward” for not participating in the first GOP debate, adding that the Republican Party has suffered a series of losses because of the former president.

“The Republicans have done nothing but lose since Donald Trump,” he told CNN.

So how did the former New Jersey governor go so quickly from being one of Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleaders and most trusted advisers to a man hell-bent on Mr Trump’s downfall?

One Democratic strategist thinks Mr Trump was the perfect foil for Mr Christie to get back into electoral politics.

“Trump was what he needed, whether he wanted to admit it or not,” Hank Sheinkopf told Politico. “Trump was his way back.”

And Mr Christie appears especially adept at getting under Mr Trump’s skin. The former president has called Mr Christie a “fat pig” and said at a recent campaign event that “Christie’s eating right now”.

Mr Christie fired back at the former president: “If you had the guts you would show up to the debate and say it to my face.”

A governor goes to Washington

The final months of Mr Christie’s time as governor of New Jersey are now largely glossed over, even by the man himself, as much of his focus during that time was evidently on Washington DC and the man who would eventually win the Oval Office. Only the BridgeGate scandal, largely credited with tarnishing Mr Christie’s image on the national stage just ahead of his own presidential run, is given much air in his writings as the governor blasted a former ally as a liar and a felon while shrugging off any personal liability for closing lanes on a heavily trafficked bridge from New Jersey to New York City.

Described in play-by-play fashion with the governor’s own thoughts interspersed throughout his book Let Me Finish, Mr Christie’s time on the 2016 Trump campaign and later Trump transitional team was largely spent butting heads with a series of the president’s closest flunkies: son-in-law Jared Kushner, ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus and Breitbart scion Steve Bannon. The three are constantly portrayed as undermining and weakening the efforts of both Mr Christie and the president himself as Mr Trump limped to the finish line in 2016 and proceeded to staff the White House with loyalists and the occasional expert floated by Mr Christie or others.

Pretty much the entirety of Mr Trump’s presidency is portrayed the same way: One instance after another of the president or others ignoring Mr Christie’s prescient advice, either on the Russia investigation, repeal of Obamacare or a myriad of other issues that consumed the White House and Washington DC for four years. In the end, Mr Christie, meanwhile, depicts himself as a loyal operative and ally who sought to fill the White House with a star-studded cast of experts and political heavyweights, almost none of whom ever made it through the front door. In the end, the governor writes that he was denied the job he wanted — RNC chair — after being explicitly promised the position, and angrily turning down a long series of jobs in response.

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Xural.com