Trump's poll numbers are doing what they're doing because of the economy: Chris Christie

[0:00] We're going to turn now to former Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, joins us. [0:06] It's good to have you back on the show. Joe has the first question for you, Chris. Joe. [0:11] Hey, Governor. Thanks so much for being with us. I think I may have a lonely position, [0:17] not only in this network, but maybe across most of media. I'm curious what you think [0:23] as a former chief executive. My feeling is last night, yes, the president's message was vague. [0:29] He was saying two things at the same time, which, of course, we don't want a president to tell us [0:33] exactly what he's going to do in a war. But I thought it was important, regardless of the [0:38] message that Donald Trump got out there and said, this is why we're here. We can't have a nuclear [0:44] Iran. Past presidents have been kicking the can down the road. We're going to keep fighting for [0:50] two to three more weeks to further degrade their military assets. And then he said a couple of [0:56] things that, again, overly optimistic. But I'm going to keep fighting for two to three more weeks [0:59] to further degrade their military assets. And then he said a couple of things that, again, [0:59] I'm curious your thoughts. How often should this president in the middle of war get out and deliver [1:05] addresses to the people? Well, Joe, you're not as lonely as you think, because I do think it [1:12] was important for him to get out there last night and be seen in a setting like he was seen, [1:18] like a commander in chief, as opposed to, you know, what he's been doing with his time otherwise, [1:25] which was when he's been out, it's been more of a campaign rally type mode, [1:30] that he's been in. And look, I don't know what people really expected from the speech last night [1:36] from the folks inside the White House to, you know, the American public. You're right that a [1:42] president can't, in the midst of a war, tell us exactly everything that he's planning to do. That [1:46] would be counterproductive to success, but most importantly, to the safety and security of our [1:53] men and women in uniform. So he has a responsibility that's greater, I think, than just a just [1:59] informing the public. He's got a responsibility to protect the safety of the people that he's put [2:05] in harm's way. Now, that being said, it would have been nice if he had done a little more last [2:10] night than what he did in terms of kind of squaring the circle that he's created. You know, [2:17] he was with us last June telling us that and insisting that we had obliterated the nuclear [2:22] program. And now, you know, we're still trying to get there. He needs to square some of that for [2:28] the American people, because [2:29] American people have a long memory on this stuff. And they recognize, especially when you're talking [2:34] about sending young men and women into conflict, that, you know, they remember what you've said [2:40] to them on this issue. And because he was so insistent, and you know, Joe, because you know [2:45] him well, that this comes from, you know, his grandiose language that he uses. He had to say [2:51] obliterate them once he said it. He has to stick by it, even when his own defense intelligence [2:56] agency says that's not true. So, you know, [2:59] there's some things last night that he didn't square that he's going to need to square. [3:03] But I agree with you. I think he is the president, and he had not made a case yet for this war [3:10] in a serious setting directly to the American people. You can agree or disagree about whether [3:15] he did the job last night, but at least he tried. Right. He does himself no favors when he's standing [3:22] next to Pete Hegseth delivering updates on the war. Pete Hegseth strikes many as a child, looks like a [3:29] child. [3:30] child, and it's the last thing you want your commander-in-chief associated with. [3:34] Willie, I will say a couple of critiques I've heard already this morning was he's too [3:38] ambiguous. [3:38] Well, we don't want commanders-in-chief saying this is exactly what I'm going to do. [3:42] If the president said we are coming home, then, yes, the markets may have been happy, [3:47] but our allies would have freaked out, and you would have had a lot of middle-class Americans [3:53] that would have been screwed because the issue of the strait still not clarified. [3:57] He said two to three weeks. [3:59] I think we all know that's sort of his go-to happy place where, you know, there's enough [4:05] of an ambiguity there, and as I'm saying, I don't want anybody to misinterpret me, as [4:11] I've said, there's some things he said that were continued to be overly optimistic. [4:16] The straits aren't going to open themselves, and the hard part is not over. [4:21] I mean, the hard part is still ahead of us, and that is trying to figure out how to negotiate [4:25] with whatever is left of this Iranian regime to keep the straits open. [4:29] And also to get some kind of agreement on long-term nuclear inspections. [4:36] So, yeah, a lot of things were left vague, some intentionally vague, but at the end of [4:41] the day, we need the president to actually communicate more to the American people, hopefully [4:47] without a childish secretary of defense standing by his side. [4:53] I mean, in fairness, he does communicate with us a lot, like all day, a lot, President Trump, [4:58] whether he's speaking in front of Mike. [4:59] He's speaking in front of the microphone. [5:00] He's speaking on social media. [5:01] And the problem is, a lot of what he says contradicts the last thing he said or will [5:06] contradict the next thing he says. [5:07] So I'm not sure it always delivers clarity to the average American watching and wondering [5:11] what we're doing in Iran, but he made an attempt last night. [5:15] And Governor Christie, I'm curious if you can put on your governor's hat again and just [5:19] think about the domestic implications of this war. [5:22] President Trump was kind of dismissive last night, saying, oh, gas prices will come down [5:26] as soon as we wrap this up. [5:27] You know, basically, don't worry about that. [5:29] We'll get rid of it. [5:30] The Strait of Hormuz, it'll open naturally. [5:32] Then the gas prices will come down. [5:33] No problem there. [5:35] But man, in New Jersey, as we know, where we still pump our own gas, it's really expensive [5:40] to fill up your tank. [5:41] It's really expensive to go to the stop and shop, all of those things. [5:45] Do you think the president appreciates what's happening out there in the streets of the [5:50] country in places like New Jersey, how expensive life already was and how much more expensive [5:56] this war is making it? [5:57] You know, Willie, I think he's. [6:00] He's in denial about it. [6:02] I think there's something inside him gnawing at him that he knows that this is a huge problem, [6:07] not only for him, but for our party. [6:10] But he also, you know, he likes to just say it'll fix itself. [6:14] It'll be fine. [6:15] It kind of reminds me of what he said about covid initially. [6:18] Remember when he said, you know, it was just going to disappear come the spring in 2020. [6:24] Once the spring and summer and the warmer weather came, it was just going to disappear. [6:27] He likes to convince himself of those things. [6:31] It makes him feel better, and he hopes that it makes the American people feel better. [6:35] Look, his problem is that even though we produce the most oil of any nation in the world, we [6:44] live in a global market and price is going to be set by everything that's happening and [6:49] we are going to be impacted by that price. [6:52] Our wholesalers and retailers are affected by those prices, both at the gas pump and [6:58] with everything else that we do because we transport. [7:01] So many of our goods across the continental country to get them to the stores close to [7:05] the people. [7:06] So, you know, these are things that are just facts. [7:10] They're immutable, sometimes inconvenient and bothersome facts, and he's not addressing [7:17] those right now. [7:18] And that's why you see his numbers where they are, is because, look, we know that in this [7:23] election in 2024, lots of people made a bargain. [7:27] They basically said, look, he makes us uncomfortable. [7:31] We don't like the way he treats other people. [7:33] We don't like the tone and the content. [7:35] Many people did not like that in what he says. [7:38] But, you know, he had a great economy when he was the president the first time before [7:43] COVID, and we'll trade our discomfort with what he does to our national institutions [7:49] for that better economy at my own kitchen table. [7:52] When you're not delivering that, then your poll numbers do what his poll numbers are [7:58] doing, which is a lot of Americans. [8:01] There's a base that really love him. [8:03] But I would say a majority or close to an overwhelming majority of Americans do not [8:07] like the way he conducts himself in office, do not like what he's done to our institutions. [8:11] But they were willing to make a trade for their families to have economic security. [8:16] When they're not getting that, they're going to abandon ship. [8:18] And that's what you see them doing in the poll numbers right now. [8:21] And that's going to have an enormous effect on my party this fall in the midterms if something [8:28] doesn't change and change quickly. [8:29] Because, you know, there's a lot of people who are going to be in the polls. [8:30] You know, there's a lag time for people to feel change. [8:33] It's going to have to happen late this spring, early this summer, or I think that the train [8:39] going in the direction of running over my party in the midterm will not be able to be [8:43] stopped. [8:45] John, an important clarification from the Garden State. [8:47] I think I said where we pump our own gas. [8:48] It's the only state where someone else pumps our gas and has since 1949. [8:52] Oh, my. [8:53] Yeah. [8:54] No, I caught that. [8:55] I didn't want to correct you, Willie. [8:56] Thank you, Gov. [8:57] I misspoke, obviously. [8:58] Yeah. [8:59] Maybe there's one gas station. [9:00] No, no. [9:01] Where you can do it yourself. [9:02] It's the law. [9:03] Somebody else does it for you. [9:04] Yeah. [9:05] Yeah. [9:06] No, for sure. [9:07] It's one of the things that makes New Jersey so special. [9:08] Governor, the view, the view from Tehran is that the spokesperson for the president there [9:12] dismissed Trump's speech as insane. [9:15] You mentioned your party, the Republicans, concerns they may have for this November's [9:21] midterms. [9:22] But also, I'm curious, your take is some of the silence as to the silence of some of Republican [9:26] institutionalists, particularly those in the Senate. [9:28] But also those in the Senate. [9:29] But also those in some state houses who are concerned, who understand that America's strength [9:34] is in part because of its allies. [9:36] And the president, though he didn't say it last night, gave an interview just hours before [9:39] his speech suggesting he might pull out of NATO because of, you know, the allies' reluctance [9:45] to help with the Strait of Hormuz, even though it's a problem, of course, the president, [9:49] the U.S. and Israel created. [9:51] What is your sense of that? [9:53] Because this would be the destruction or at least the crippling of this alliance, you [9:58] know, which was. [9:59] It would be a total bulwark for 80 plus years against Russian aggression. [10:02] It would truly be, I'd argue, the biggest global ramification of this conflict. [10:08] Yeah, he's not going to do that, Jonathan. [10:11] He's not going to do that. [10:12] Not because he doesn't want to, but he can't. [10:14] NATO is a treaty that was ratified by the United States Senate. [10:20] NATO is a treaty that can only be withdrawn from with the permission of Congress. [10:24] And Congress is not going to do that. [10:26] This is one of those things where the president does this, you know, in part to blow off steam. [10:31] Because he's angry they won't do exactly what he's told them to do. [10:34] And in part because it reinforces his tough guy image. [10:39] But in the end, the law butts up against that. [10:42] We saw that with things as mundane and silly as the building of his ballroom, which a judge [10:50] has now stopped and he's upset about that, to something as deadly serious as the NATO [10:55] alliance, and everything in between. [10:59] And here's something. [11:00] You know. [11:01] Nobody asked me to put my governor's hat on yet. [11:02] And I guess I haven't taken it off yet. [11:04] Here's something that is about to happen to him that he will be completely disoriented [11:09] by. [11:10] Being a lame duck. [11:12] Of course, he didn't have to deal with it in 2020. [11:14] He was running for a second term. [11:16] He's never had to deal with the idea that the political gravity of the country will [11:21] move away from him. [11:23] And as time moves on now here, people are going to start to focus on 2028. [11:29] People are going to start to focus on who the candidates are going to be in both parts. [11:32] And here's something that's going to be a real conflict. [11:36] He's going to be the 48th president of the United States. [11:41] And he's going to be less significant. [11:43] And these pronouncements about I'm going to pull out of NATO or I'm going to build a $400 [11:49] million ballroom onto the White House that he makes by executive fiat, including having [11:55] to sit and watch the Supreme Court debate and discuss the legality and constitutionality [12:01] of his executive order of birthright citizenship. [12:02] These things are going to happen more and more frequently when he's a lame duck. [12:05] And people are not going to care nearly as much about what Donald Trump says. [12:10] Imagine his world when that happens. [12:13] I've been a lame duck. [12:15] I served as a two-term governor, term limited. [12:17] And those last two years are tough because you're struggling. [12:21] You're the governor. [12:22] You're continuing to do things that are really important. [12:25] But if you don't have a cooperative relationship with your legislative body, [12:28] you don't have to show respect for the process, [12:31] people are going to ignore you more and more. [12:33] And even when you do, they begin to ignore you because you are becoming yesterday's.