Why Chris Christie Hates the Trump Family Mafia
It goes back to 2004 ...
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hates Donald Trump and his children with the fire of ten thousand suns. And now he is in the thick of things for 2024. The feud is ancient and sanguinary, with each side taking a piece out of the other as they pass each other, every four years, during the Presidential race. Like the two Napoleonic era combatants in The Duellists, each compelled by some mysterious force to annihilate the other. I mean, Trump gave Chris Christie COVID, probably through debate prep, after concealing the fact that he even had the virus. “Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows revealed in his new book that Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on Sept. 26, 2020 — six days before it was publically announced on Oct. 2,” Kierra Frazier wrote for Axios in 2021. “Christie tested positive for COVID-19 on Oct. 3, 2020.” Christie then told Margaret Hoover on Firing Line:
"I would have worn a mask if I knew that," Christie said. "We knew everybody in that room, except for the president, was getting tested every day. We didn't know what the president's testing regimen was."
"So if Mark Meadows knew that somebody that I was sitting across from for four days had popped the positive test, [he] should have told us," he added.
"He didn't tell us," Christie said. "I went into the hospital in the intensive care unit. He didn't call and tell me. So I think that's inexcusable."
As morally unconscionable as it is to hide ones COVID status from Christie was, at least he fared better than the late Herman Cain (RIP). Chris Christie escaped the MAGA death cult, but just barely. So — why would be voluntarily step back in to the liar’s den? Revenge: a dish best served cold. “The ramifications are wildly random and potentially deadly,” Christie said of his COVID diagnosis, after seven days in icu. “No one should be happy to get the virus and no one should be cavalier about being infected or infecting others.”
Chris Christie is in this for one simple reason — to destroy Donald Trump. He has that lane all to himself, and will probably take out all his frustrations at Jared out on the candidate as well. I have described it as a “kamikaze” campaign (see above) and I’m sticking with that description. Christie’s plan is to skewer Trump on the debate stage the same way he skewered Marco Rubio and, absent that, slowly obliterate the former President by a sustained and brutal series of attacks all summer and until he runs out of what few billionaire donors he has left.
You have probably heard of the bad blood that goes back to Jared’s father and the shame of the New Jersey Kushner’s. It goes back to 2004, before Christie was even Governor of New Jersey. As a US Attorney, Christie went after and convicted Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, a crooked real estate magnate who inherited his position from his father, a Holocaust survivor. Years later, Christie made sure to say into the microphones, that it was “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he had ever prosecuted.
In fine, New Jersey real-estate tycoon Charles Kushner paid a high-end escort to videotape the seduction of a key tax-fraud witness against him — his own brother-in-law — in a New Jersey motel room. And then, as if that isn’t sordid enough, Charles sent copies of the tape to his sister-in-law and her daughter, Jared Kushner’s sister. CNN’s Devan Cole describes the sleeze thusly:
Christie was referring to an elaborate revenge plot that the older Kushner hatched in 2003 in order to target his his brother-in-law, William Schulder, a former employee turned witness for federal prosecutors in their case against Kushner, who was under investigation at the time for making illegal campaign contributions.
As a part of the plot, Kushner hired a prostitute to lure Schulder into having sex in a Bridgewater, New Jersey, motel room as a hidden camera rolled. A tape of the encounter was then sent to Kushner’s sister and Schulder’s wife, Esther.
It doesn’t hurt to marry a Trump, however. His marriage to Ivanka — and children — gave Jared an opportunity to clean somewhat his family name. And so Charles Kushner received a full pardon from then-President Trump in 2020. Even that, however, did not conclude the Christie-Kushner blood feud.
Fast forward to 2016. After dropping out of the Presidential race after flopping in New Hampshire (he came in 6th), Christie became chairman of the Trump transition team, from May 2016 until shortly after Election Day. In that capacity, he excelled, until replaced by then Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Until he was fired. From Michael Lewis in The Guardian:
The method of his execution was unsurprising: Trump always avoided firing people himself. The man who played Mr. You’re Fired on TV avoided personal confrontation in real life. The surprise was that it was being done now, just when the work of the transition team was most critical. Only when Christie threatened to go down and tell reporters that Bannon had fired him did Bannon concede, “It was Jared.”
Fast forward four years later, where Trump allegedly gave Christie COVID during re-election debate prep. This foolish move speaks to Christies never-ending lust for power. And you wonder why Chris Christie hates the Trump family mafia with the fire of ten thousand suns …
The Middle East: Goodbye America, hello China? The US is losing ground in the region and it has only itself to blame. (Marwan Bishara)
“Textbook histories used to claim that independence in Africa was more or less complete by the mid-1960s. Decolonisation had lifted the white man’s burden and allowed African activists to strike out on their own – with a ceremonial nod to their European benefactors.” (Kevin Okoth/LRB)
Lionel Messi, Tiger Woods, and other sports stars who rejected Saudi offers (semafor)
Washington Needs an Endgame in Ukraine (Samuel Sharap)
Why is Hannibal Gaddafi on hunger strike in a Lebanese prison? (Al Jazeera)
Why the U.S.-China ‘Cold War’ Framing Is So Dangerous (Reid Smith/Foreign Policy)
Inside the Wagner-verse: How Hollywood-Style Propaganda Films Are Selling Putin’s War (THR)
The V Files: The Shocking Legacy of an ’80s Sci-Fi Cult Classic (VF)