When you’ve lost Chris Christie…
When it was reported that Donald Trump was considering Chris Christie as his White House Chief of Staff, it was a sign of just how desperate he’d become. Trump found Christie so annoying, he fired him from the transition team almost immediately after giving him the job. But now Christie is publicly removing himself from consideration, citing – as people always do – in these situations – family reasons. So what’s really going on here?
When Chris Christie was a prosecutor, he put Jared Kushner’s father in prison. That would have made for one strange working environment if Donald Trump were to hire Christie as Chief of Staff. The mere notion of Christie being considered for the job was a sign that literally no one else was interested. When other leaks surfaced claiming that Kushner was being considered for the job, it felt like perhaps Kushner was offering to do it just to keep Christie out.
But before anyone involved could even cross that – ahem – bridge, Christie decided to put an end to the whole thing. This is remarkable, considering that he left office with around a fifteen percent approval rating in New Jersey, and Chief of Staff is probably the best job offer he’ll ever get in politics for the rest of his life. But even he wasn’t desperate enough to want it.
It’s not difficult to figure out why. Donald Trump is going to ask his new Chief of Staff to obstruct justice, just as he asked his last two Chiefs of Staff to obstruct justice – and they both ended up being questioned about it by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Also, Trump appears to be near the end. Why would Chris Christie want to take a job that probably won’t last for long, and could land him in prison?
