Donald Trump reportedly has a secret weapon as he prepares to debate Joe Biden — it's Chris Christie
According to a new report by Axios , U.S. President Donald Trump will have a secret weapon as he prepares to debate against Joe Biden in the upcoming election — Chris Christie. Trump, the outlet reports, is readying to face into three September debates with Biden, the Democratic nominee, with the help of the former New Jersey governor.
Trump has previously said that Christie was “harder to debate” than Hillary Clinton, when Christie previously helped him to practice for debates in the 2016 presidential race, the New York Post reports .
At secret meetings at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, Christie is said to have been one of a small crack team assembled, with a view to figuring out how Trump can best Biden at the podium. The others included Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law and adviser), his campaign manager Bill Stepien, and Jason Miller, another adviser.
The debates are said to be seen by Trump’s top aides of being of huge importance, the potential key to helping him close the polling gap between him and Biden. The team fears Biden may not hold many high-profile media interviews ahead of the vote, leaving the debates as the best chance Trump will have of making headway.
“I don’t think he (Trump) sees the debates as the last inflection points, but potentially the most important,” one source familiar with the Trump strategy meetings told Axios “I think he always thinks he can create an inflection point. But he has verbalized how important these are going to be. He’s said, ‘We gotta win. The press will never give me the credit for it, but the people will.'”
Kushner and Christie make unusual teammates, given that Christie led the prosecution of Kushner’s father, Charles, for blackmail in the 1990s. Christie called the crime “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted.” Kushner pleaded guilty to various charges in 2005, including one related to a revenge plot that included hiring a prostitute to seduce his own brother-in-law.
In 2016, when Christie was removed from Trump’s transition team, Kushner was said to have been behind the move, the New York Post reports. Christie has attacked the younger Kushner in recent times, especially in ‘Let me Finish,’ a book he penned in 2019. In it, Christie said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon told him that Kushner had been out to get him.
"It's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted...and I was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey."@ChrisChristie talks about prosecuting Charles Kushner for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering. #FiringLineShowPBS pic.twitter.com/rBNn0j0bCY
— Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow) January 29, 2019
“Steve Bannon … made clear to me that one person and one person only was responsible for the faceless execution that Steve was now attempting to carry out. Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that had occurred a decade ago,” he wrote, according to the New York Post.
However, Axios’s reporting indicates that Trump may just feel that the awkwardness of having Kushner and Christie in the same room is worth it, if Christie can help him to get over the line in the election. Adviser Michael Caputo told the Washington Post at the time of the 2016 debates: “You don’t see any better puncher and counterpuncher than Chris Christie.”
Trump adviser Miller has said he knows not to underestimate the normally error-prone Biden when it comes to a one-on-one scenario. Though it remains to be seen if Christie will actually play Biden in dress rehearsals, or simply offer advice, Miller said Biden will be a tricky adversary.
“Joe Biden is actually a very good debater,” he told the Washington Post. “He doesn’t have as many gaffes as he does in his everyday interviews.”