What happened

President Trump has ramped up his retribution campaign, threatening to prosecute former ally turned critic Chris Christie just days after FBI agents searched the home and office of former national security adviser John Bolton. Federal agents raided Bolton's Washington, D.C., office and his suburban home on Aug. 22, seizing computers and documents as part of an investigation into alleged illegal sharing of classified information. Ahead of the raid, Bolton had angered Trump with public criticism of his policy toward Russia, and the president had spent days attacking him on social media. While Trump later denied foreknowledge of the FBI raid, he said Bolton deserved it because he was "a real sort of lowlife" and "unpatriotic." Undeterred, Bolton wrote an op-ed in the Washington Examiner listing numerous mistakes he said Trump had made regarding Russia that have "left us further from peace" in Ukraine.

Saying falsely that he could prosecute anyone he wanted to because he was America's "chief law enforcement officer," Trump turned his ire on other critics. After Christie denounced the raid on Bolton, Trump threatened to reopen a criminal investigation into "Bridgegate," an alleged act of political retaliation that took place when Christie was New Jersey governor. The president also said he would "have to rethink" federal funding for rebuilding Baltimore's damaged Key Bridge after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore warned him against sending troops to that city. And he announced he would fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, claiming she had committed mortgage fraud (see Best Business Columns, p.34). "This is clearly retribution," said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), himself a target of a Justice Department mortgage fraud probe. "Anyone who says anything adverse to the president's interests gets the full weight of the federal government brought down on them."

What the editorials said

"It's hard to see the raid" against Bolton "as anything other than vindictive," said The Wall Street Journal. Bolton fell from favor in Trump's first term and promptly wrote a tell-all memoir describing Trump as ignorant and unfit, which the administration tried unsuccessfully to block from publication. After regaining the presidency, "Trump made clear that he was out for blood," pulling Bolton's Secret Service detail even though Iran had plotted to murder him in retaliation for an assassination Bolton helped orchestrate at Trump's behest. It's "the kind of gratuitous viciousness" we've come to expect from this president.

Even if the FBI finds classified documents in Bolton's possession, "the administration has damaged any presumption of good faith by flinging weightless accusations of criminality at those who challenge it," said The New York Times. That includes not just Bolton, Cook, and Schiff, but also New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is being investigated for mortgage fraud—the apparent weapon of choice for Trump's Justice Department. Trump even threatened financier George Soros and his son Alex, prominent donors to Democratic causes, with racketeering charges.

What the columnists said

The timing of events was revealing, said Benjamin Wittes in The Bulwark. "I was there" at the start of the raid on Bolton's Maryland home, and no New York Post reporter was present. Yet within minutes, FBI Director Kash Patel had posted about it on X and the Post's website had a full-length article describing the raid. Clearly, the administration had fed information to the tabloid. "Part of the point was to create a theatrical display of law enforcement power" against a prominent anti-Trumper. The message: "If you criticize Trump, the government is coming for you."

All this is ugly indeed, said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post, but it was Democrats who first abused the law in this way. James first boasted she "planned to use her office to harass" Trump on the night she was elected in 2018, well before she unearthed evidence of his wrongdoing. The resulting civil fraud trial was a shameful spectacle of "judicial and prosecutorial overreach," as evidenced by the fact that the $454 million penalty James levied on Trump was overturned last week.

Yet the lengths Trump is going to in punishing his enemies is entirely new, and frightening, said Norm Eisen at MSNBC.com. The same institutions marshaled against Bolton "can be wielded against anyone." Who is next? It could be judges who issue rulings unfavorable to the administration, lawmakers who block Trump's agenda, or "even ordinary citizens who may have written a letter or a post on social media that he objects to." It could be you.

By any objective measure, 2024 is off to a pretty good start for Nikki Haley. The former South Carolina governor and onetime Trump administration cabinet member has been steadily gaining ground in Republican primary polls, and is — for now — enjoying that ineffable narrative of political "momentum" which fuels a positive feedback loop for more quantifiable data such as polling numbers and fundraising stats; the better Haley seems to do, the better she will ostensibly do when voters head to their caucus sites and polling locations, starting next week. 

But as Haley's momentum — both narratively and on the ground — intensifies, so does the level of scrutiny applied to her and her campaign. With her potential viability against former President Donald Trump, the party's decisive primary frontrunner for the time being, coming into clearer focus, she has increasingly become a target for the rest of a GOP pack who are eager to fend her off from above, or overtake her from below. Now, in the shadow of the looming Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, Haley's rising star faces a political crucible unlike anything she's experienced in the race thus far. Does she have what it takes to survive the onslaught of opposition that comes with pulling ahead in the polls? And if so, can Nikki Haley really go all the way to the White House?    

What the commentators said

After teasing that he had something "very important to say" earlier this week, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul launched a blistering blindside into Haley's campaign on Friday, claiming on X that he didn't see how "any thoughtful or informed libertarian or conservative should vote for" Haley while directing followers to the alliterative NeverNikki.net. 

Paul's seemingly out-of-the-blue attack on Haley follows her rise in New Hampshire, and other early primary states — a dynamic that "helped motivate him to get involved" according to Politico, which called his forceful denunciation a "change of tactics for him to get involved at all."

Trump, too, has taken note of Haley's ascendency, making "a notable turn" from attacking his previously reliable adversary Ron DeSantis toward her in a sign that he's "clearly afraid that a real alternative is gaining on him," The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board wrote this week. In particular, Trump has attacked Haley over her stance on Social Security, even as he'd "previously used the issue to attack Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis," CNN reported. Now he's using the subject to "blunt Haley’s momentum in the final days before voting begins." He has also "reached back into his brand of nativism" by amplifying false allegations that Haley is eligible to run for president in an echo of his previously debunked "birther" conspiracy against former President Barack Obama, according to The New York Times. He had also leveled a similar bogus allegation against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who was his "closest rival" during the 2016 presidential primaries. 

Some of Trump's most notably vocal allies have followed suit — and beyond. On Thursday, former Republican congressional candidate Laura Loomer accused Haley of conspiring to manipulate a cold weather front in the Midwest to damage Trump in the Iowa caucuses. 

Perhaps most brutal, however, was an apparent hot-mic moment from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who opined that Haley was "going to get smoked" and "not up to this" just moments before he ended his own candidacy for the GOP nomination in a move widely seen as being particularly to Haley's advantage. 

What next?

Despite the uptick in attacks against her, and the proximity to Iowa and New Hampshire, Haley may have lost "her nerve" and "wasn’t really going to go after Trump" during this week's GOP debates, leaving her — and the state of the race — "pretty much the same," according to The New Yorker's Benjamin Wallace-Wells. At the same time, her rising polls contain signs of trouble ahead, analysis from ABC News concluded, pointing to her poor standing with evangelicals in particular as a potential pitfall, given they're "overrepresented among Iowa caucusgoers."

Ultimately, Politico reported, coming in third behind DeSantis in Iowa would "blunt her momentum both in New Hampshire" and her home state of South Carolina, where Trump "remains nearly 30 points ahead."

'Chris Christie deserves credit and thanks'

Chicago Tribune editorial board

Chris Christie didn't get far as a Republican presidential candidate, says the Chicago Tribune editorial. The former New Jersey governor dropped out several days before Monday's Iowa caucus kicks off primary season. But he "courageously" and repeatedly told Republican primary voters what they needed to hear: "Donald Trump is unfit for office." He couldn't get Trump's two main challengers for the GOP nomination, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, to "repudiate Trump," too. At least he tried.

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'Stroke. Hysterectomy. Organ failure. These are the risks the justices think women should be forced to endure'

Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post

Conservative Supreme Court justices don't "give a damn about women's health," says Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post. Otherwise, they wouldn't be preventing the federal government from enforcing a law requiring stabilizing care for "emergency medical conditions" while they consider whether it trumps Idaho's stringent abortion ban allowing exceptions only to save the woman's life. The justices "elevate abstractions" like state sovereignty" over "actual, irreparable harm" — like organ failure and stroke — to "actual women" denied emergency abortions.

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'Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas would draw more attention to the border crisis'

National Review editorial board

Impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas "would be an act of political and moral hygiene," says the National Review editorial board. Mayorkas isn't responsible for "the administration's lawless policy at the southern border." But he is the willful "implementer" and "symbol of President Biden's dereliction." The House Homeland Security Committee was right to launch impeachment hearings against him. The Democratic Senate will never convict him, of course, but impeaching him will make Biden address the crisis.

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'It's not news that the six-feet rule lacked scientific rhyme or reason'

The Wall Street Journal editorial board

Now that Anthony Fauci has left government, he's "finally speaking at least some of the truth about government policies and Covid," says The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Fauci reportedly told lawmakers in closed-door testimony this week "the six-feet rule for social distancing 'sort of just appeared' without a solid scientific basis." Too bad the candor comes after the rule provided cover for forcing businesses and schools to close, causing lasting damage we're still recovering from.

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Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie suspended his long-shot bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination Wednesday evening, saying he wanted to "make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again," a goal "more important" than his "own personal ambition." Trump's leading critic in the GOP field, Christie had staked his campaign on doing well in New Hampshire's Jan. 23 primary.

Christie's exit was expected to boost former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, whose poll numbers are rising especially in New Hampshire, but he declined to immediately endorse any Republican rival. In fact, he seemed to rule out any such endorsement, telling his New Hampshire supporters that anyone unwilling to say Trump "is unfit to be president of the United States is unfit themselves to be president of the United States."

In what appeared to be a hot-mic moment broadcast on his campaign website shortly before he announced his departure from the race, Christie said Haley is "going to get smoked, and you and I both know it. She's not up to this." Christie also said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) called him, "petrified" that he would do something, possibly throw his support to Haley, though the recording ended before he finished the thought.

Christie had suggested he wasn't dropping out of the race as recently as Tuesday, saying he would be "happy to get out of the way for somebody if they actually were going against Donald Trump," but none of them were. In a debate in Iowa on Wednesday night, Haley and DeSantis harshly attacked each other but only intermittently criticized Trump.

Haley commended Christie, "a friend for many years," on his "hard-fought campaign." DeSantis said on X he agreed "with Christie that Nikki Haley is 'going to get smoked,'" while Trump wrote on Truth Social that Christie's assessment of Haley was "a very truthful statement." On MSNBC, poll-crunching political analyst Steve Kornacki dissected whether Haley will inevitably get "smoked" by Trump, and gave a qualified maybe.

'Democrats should publicly and vociferously disavow all efforts to remove Trump from the ballot'

Jeanne Sheehan Zaino in the Washington Examiner

The moves to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballots in Colorado and Maine are symptoms of a lingering problem — the "distinctly American tendency to look to the judiciary to resolve political questions," says Jeanne Sheehan Zaino in the Washington Examiner. Democrats apparently learned nothing when the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade triggered multiple state ballot initiatives protecting abortion access. In a democracy, it's best to win political fights "at the ballot box." 

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'A compelling rebuke of Netanyahu's attempt to subvert the judiciary'

Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post

Israel's top court just "struck a blow in support of democracy and judicial independence," says Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post. By overturning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "inaptly named 'judicial reform'" restricting the court's ability to strike down unreasonable laws, "the court helped preserve the core values of the country." Taking this stand while Israel fights Hamas showed that Netanyahu's "unpopular government cannot hide behind the exigencies of war to maintain its authoritarian agenda."

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'In my fantasy life, I do not use social media'

Shannon Palus at Slate

It's no secret "social media can tank your mental health and destroy your brain," says Shannon Palus at Slate. But "fully quitting" would be too hard and could make us "less connected," because "these platforms are just part of the fabric of how we interact with the world now." Aiming lower and limiting ourselves to 30 minutes daily, though, would leave more time for books, yoga, and other things "to go online and brag about."

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'Cutting off your nose to spite your face'

Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times

Young voters disappointed over Gaza, abortion bans, climate change, and student loans are threatening to stay home on Election Day, says Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times. Voters between ages 18 and 24 "were squarely in Biden's corner" in 2020. Losing them would significantly hurt Biden's chances of beating former President Donald Trump in a rematch. "Teach Democrats a lesson by electing a democracy-destroying authoritarian?" This shows a "fundamentally weak grasp" of how things work. 

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'The authoritarian shift of the Republican Party, led by Donald Trump'

Bryann Tannehill in The New Republic

Former President Donald Trump and the GOP are "not even bothering to try to hide their authoritarian aims anymore," says Bryann Tannehill in The New Republic. Trump is calling opponents "vermin" out to "destroy America," and arguing that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our nation." Instead of condemning his "Hitlerian overtones," Republicans are lapping it up. "The horrifying conclusion is that there is plenty of appetite within the party for this sort of rhetoric."

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'Blaming Black outcomes on the criminal justice system will do little to help the Black underclass'

Jason L. Riley in The Wall Street Journal

Another academic paper has called into question the "notion that the U.S. criminal-justice system is stacked against Black people," says Jason L. Riley in The Wall Street Journal. Two Stetson University sociologists, Christopher Ferguson and Sven Smith, analyzed 51 studies on sentencing disparities published between 2005 and 2022 and found "overrepresentation among perpetrators of crime explains incarceration disparities" — not racism. Blaming "systemic bias" may "help activists raise money" but it won't "help the Black underclass." 

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'It's time for America to return to Afghanistan'

Kathy Gannon in The New York Times

Washington has tried to isolate the Taliban government that took over as the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, says Kathy Gannon in The New York Times. But leaving Western embassies in Kabul vacant isn't "going to get girls back to school." It will only backfire like it did the last time the U.S. tried "to pressure the ruling Taliban" into moderation. It's time to admit "past policies have failed" and "commit to greater engagement."

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'The political case for Haley is the moral case against her'

Will Saletan in The Bulwark

Chris Christie "is right," Nikki Haley is "a coward," says Will Saletan in The Bulwark. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu wants Christie to drop out of the Republican primaries to boost Haley's chances of beating former President Donald Trump. Sununu argues that, unlike Christie, the former South Carolina governor "has managed not to antagonize too many pro-Trump voters." But it's "craven self-preservation" like Haley's "that gave Trump power over the GOP in the first place."

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Donald Trump is hardly what most critics would call a masterful debater — at least, not in the classical sense. He eschews specific answers for blunt oration, favoring bombast and aggression over discourse and detail. As a candidate in the 2016 presidential election, Trump's ability to turn each debate into a spectacle of insults and sound bytes — a "mega debate" per the Washington Post — helped him winnow his way through a shrinking roster of rivals with each successive event. It would be inaccurate to say that Trump won his party's nomination on the strength of his debate performances alone, but it's hard to imagine a world in which he had taken the stage at the Republican National Convention without them.

Nearly eight years later the GOP again stands at the cusp of a debate cycle seemingly tailor-made for Trump's particular campaign style. Once again the Republican field is overcrowded with a mix of career politicians, rising conservative stars, and "outsider" dark horses, none of whom have landed on an effective antidote to Trump's diluvial approach to politics. Unlike 2016, however, Trump himself is no longer an unknown quantity, confounding expectations as he burns a path from the bottom up through his ostensibly more qualified rivals. This time around, Trump sits comfortably atop a GOP field fundamentally defined by a party that has reshaped itself in his own image. And now with the first scheduled Republican primary debate just days away, the party's leading candidate has signaled that he won't join the competition on stage in Milwaukee at the end of the month.

What's behind Donald Trump's "will I/won't I" debate posturing? And given the state of the Republican presidential race at large, will it even matter in the long run?

What are the commentators saying?

After initially asserting that he would not sign a Republican National Committee pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee — one of the prerequisites to participate in the debate — Trump left himself an opening to reverse his decision, telling Newsmax's Eric Bolling that he hadn't "totally ruled it out."

"Attention. That's it," former RNC communications director Doug Heye explained to The Hill. Trump's refusal to commit one way or another is designed to "maximize attention so the conversation isn't about the debate — the conversation's about whether or not Donald Trump will debate."

Arguing that Trump skipping the debate would be "good for him and the GOP," Politico's Jack Shafer pointed out that not only is Trump's lead so "stupendous" that "the cosmos would have to split open and smite him to block his nomination," but that a Trump-less debate would be an opportunity for the party to "shape the post-Donald landscape." The primary forces hoping Trump does choose to attend are, per Shafer, the "relevance-seeking RNC" and "ratings-hungry Fox News executives."

In no small part, there's little to be gained politically by Trump should he choose to attend the upcoming debate. "If you have a 20-stroke lead going into the 18th hole, you tend not to be that worried," he mused during a recent appearance at his Bedminster golf course, seemingly acknowledging the benefit of sitting on his enormous polling lead without having to defend it onstage. He was even more direct in a Fox News interview earlier this summer, asking "Why would you let somebody that's at zero or one or two or three percent be popping you with questions?" Should he attend, there's a "real downside risk" for Trump in affording his rivals the opportunity to upend "the idleness that's defined the race so far," which would in turn "[allow] the race to become a race," according to Slate.

Conversely, "If he's not there, nobody is going to defend him from what will turn into a prime-time event bashing him," GOP strategist Alex Conant told The Hill. "Presidential campaigns live and die by media oxygen, and if you're not on the debate stage, you're giving a ton of oxygen to your challengers." That oxygen, however, could also be used to further separate Trump from the pack by refocusing the attention on the former president's chief rival at the moment; "Trump's absence could also take a toll on DeSantis, who would become the top candidate on the debate stage — and thus the target of the event," CNBC's Kevin Breuninger said, noting that "Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas experienced something of that kind during the 2016 debate that Trump skipped."

What's next?

It's wholly possible that Trump will keep the public — and his rivals — guessing up until the last possible moment, choosing only after exploiting the uncertainty to maximal effect. To that end, some of his fellow Republican candidates are reportedly not waiting to see what he decides and are instead "holding debate prep sessions as if Trump will be there," NBC News reported this week. Even if Trump ends up skipping, those Trump-focused debate prep sessions will still come in handy for candidates who have to "prepare for the shadow that he casts over because he's not in the room," one GOP operative told the network.

"Have no doubt that whether he debates or not, there will be cameras on him that night," Slate predicted, highlighting the event held simultaneously with the 2016 debate chose to skip. "He has options. None of them involve peace and quiet."

Trump himself has hinted at his own counter-programming should he opt out of this debate, telling Reuters this summer that "We've had a lot of offers, whether it's a rally or whether it's an interview by somebody else."

"Not to be braggadocious," he added, "but the debate will not be a very exciting one if I'm not there."

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) laid out a unified theory of former President Donald Trump, his former ally and current 2024 Republican presidential rival, on CNN Wednesday night. Trump, he told host Kaitlan Collins, is dishonest, obsessive about his boxes, a childish showoff, a longtime grifter, and "the cheapest person I've ever met in my life." And those characteristics explain why Trump is facing 37 federal felony counts and using campaign contributions to pay his personal legal fees, Christie argued.

Trump did not stonewall 18 months of discreet attempts by the government to claw back the highly classified documents he took with him from the White House because he wanted to sell them or anything nefarious like that, Christie said. Trump kept the documents "just to show off. He wants to continue to act like he's president. He can't live with the fact that he's not." Keeping government secrets for ego-boosting bragging rights "seems childish and stupid — and it is — but that's the reason why, in my view, he's always kept them," he said.

Collins asked why Trump keeps coming up with new excuses for keeping and showing off what the indictment says is a secret foreign invasion plan, and Christie said it's "because he's getting cornered," and when cornered, "he'll lie about anything." A recent interview he gave to Fox News anchor Bret Baier "put him in a horrible box that I don't think he's ever going to be able to get out of," Christie said. "He admitted he had the documents, he knew about the grand jury subpoena, but he was too busy to go through the boxes" and "didn't just want to turn the boxes over because he had golf shirts and golf pants in there. I mean, come on, there's nobody in America who believes that story."

Trump is a "self-professed billionaire," so siphoning off donor money to pay his lawyers is "disgraceful, and it's a continued grift," Christie said. later. "And look, the Trump family has been involved in grifting for quite some time," he added. "Jared Kushner, six months after he leaves the White House gets $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund when Donald Trump had put him in a position to be in the Middle East? What was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East?"

Christie also took a shot at another GOP presidential hopeful, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by mocking his professed lack of an opinion on Trump's actions before and during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Christie, for his part, had lots of opinions.

It seems new Republican candidates are announcing presidential bids every day, and the field isn't cleared yet: Axios reported that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will announce his 2024 presidential campaign in early June.

Christie, a familiar GOP face who led New Jersey for eight years, previously ran for president in 2016, but was unable to gain traction and dropped out of the race after losing the New Hampshire primary to then-candidate Donald Trump. This time, Christie will run "a non-traditional campaign that is highly focused on earned media, mixing it up in the news cycle and engaging Trump," an advisor told Axios.

This seems to be indicative of a continuing back-and-forth between Christie and Trump. The former governor attacked Trump repeatedly during his 2016 campaign, but later endorsed the eventual president. In recent years, Christie has relinquished his support of Trump, saying he would never back him again. "I can't help [Trump]. No way," Christie told Axios, adding, "When you have the Jan. 6 choir at a rally and you show video of it — I just don't think that person is appropriate for the presidency."

However, Christie has been besieged by scandals of his own, and left his tenure as governor of the Garden State with just a 15% approval rating. Does he stand a chance in 2024?

Christie's beginnings and governorship

The 60-year-old Christie is a native of Newark, New Jersey, and grew up with an interest in politics. He was appointed as a U.S. attorney by former President George W. Bush, working his way up the political ladder in New Jersey. During his time as an attorney, he "prosecuted and convicted 130 public officials, and built a reputation as a corruption fighter," Vox reported. He ran for governor in 2009, defeating incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in a close race before being re-elected in 2013. During his time as governor, Christie's administration focused on "fiscal responsibility, job creation, pension and health benefits reform, and education reform," according to the National Governors' Association.

However, he gained nationwide recognition during his time as governor for a number of scandals. The most notable is 2013's "Bridgegate" scandal, when workers shut down lanes of the George Washington Bridge connecting Fort Lee, New Jersey, to Manhattan for four days. This created traffic jams that "snarled police, emergency workers, and children beginning the new school year," the Los Angeles Times reported. It was alleged that the closure was ordered by New Jersey state officials because the then-mayor of Fort Lee refused to endorse Christie for re-election. Emails released "as part of a legislative inquiry into the scandal suggest the closures were politically motivated," the Times added. This created "a deep erosion in Christie's political standing since the scandal engulfed his administration," CBS News reported.

Then there was Christie's use of a helicopter to go watch his son play baseball. The ride "was credited at $2,500 an hour and many found it inappropriate that such a high cost would be deemed acceptable by the governor for a personal matter," the Observer reported, especially given that Christie had "long promised fiscal responsibility." There were also investigations into Christie's use of Hurricane Sandy relief funds in 2014, after Congress wrote that he'd "irresponsibly misappropriated funding allocated by Congress from the Sandy aid package and taken advantage of this waiver for political purposes."

In 2017, he was also photographed sunning himself on a beach that had been closed due to a government shutdown. The image "prompted a torrent of criticism and mockery," The New York Times wrote.

His presidential odds

Christie will enter the race with historically low polling numbers. A Monmouth University poll from May 30 showed him with just a 21% favorability rating among likely GOP voters, the lowest among 10 Republican hopefuls tested. Just 47% had a positive view of him.

Christie's numbers "haven't improved since Monmouth's August 2015 poll of Republicans and Republican leaners," NBC News noted, meaning his presidential run will likely be a difficult one. However, there is still plenty of time until the election, and fortunes could change. NBC reported that a Monmouth poll from that same time period showed Trump with just a 28% favorability rating.

Any Republican thinking about running for president in 2024 needs to go public as soon as they've made a decision, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) says — not wait to find out what former President Donald Trump intends to do.

During an interview with Axios on HBO that aired Sunday, Christie said he believes those who "say they will defer to Donald Trump have disqualified themselves from being president. Because if you're not willing to stand up to someone ... how are you gonna be standing up for everyone when you're president?" It should be a given, he added, that "if you believe you have the talent, the ability, the skills to be president of the United States, you shouldn't defer to anyone if you believe you're the best person."

Christie is making the rounds promoting his new book Republican Rescue, and has said he's going to wait until the 2022 midterms to decide whether he'll run for president in 2024. He didn't just talk with Axios on HBO about the next presidential race; Christie also discussed at length his serious case of COVID-19, which he caught at the White House last fall while helping Trump prepare for a debate against President Joe Biden. That, he said, is "the only regret" he has about assisting Trump in his re-election efforts.

While fighting COVID-19, Christie spent seven days in a hospital intensive care unit, and said the experience was "very scary." He had body aches "like I've never felt in my life," Christie said. "I had very, very high fevers, sweating, difficulty breathing, and brutal headaches. ... I definitely felt I could die." He suggests that those who have yet to be vaccinated against COVID-19 "talk to people like me who have had it, talk to the family members of people who died from it, and talk to your doctor."

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) began publicly testing the appetite for his pitch about a post-Trump Republican Party in a September speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. And he's very clear that President Biden won in 2020 in a new book, Republican Rescue. When Christie reiterated his message about looking forward and fighting Biden now instead of obsessing about 2020 at a Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Nevada last week, former President Donald Trump took note and tried to slap Christie down.

Christie "was just absolutely massacred by his statements that Republicans have to move on from the past, meaning the 2020 Election Fraud," Trump said in statement, adding that "Chris left New Jersey with a less than 9 percent approval rating — a record low, and they didn't want to hear this from him!" (It was actually 19 percent.)

Christie poked back. Trump should focus less on "personal vendetta," he told The New York Times in an interview published Saturday, adding: "I just think if he wants to have that kind of conversation about me then I'm going to point out that I got 60 percent of the vote in a blue state." He told Axios something similar last week.

Christie's book has plenty of anecdotes about Trump, though he told the Times' Maggie Haberman "it's not a book about him." For example, when Christie was getting last rites from his priest during a very serious bout of COVID-19 he contracted after a White House event, he writes, Trump called him in the hospital with one main concern: "Are you gonna say you got it from me?" And Trump was "just beside himself with fury" after former President Barack Obama roasted him over his birtherism in 2011, Christie confirms.

Christie told Haberman he doesn't believe Trump "anticipated that people would cause violence up on Capitol Hill" on Jan. 6, but that Trump's months of false election claims led to the insurrection. He rarely disagreed with Trump on policy, Christie continued, and believes their long friendship makes him a credible Trump critic now. He said he won't make any decision about running in 2024 until after the 2022 midterms and won't let Trump's decision factor into his own, Haberman reports, but he also "would not rule out supporting the former president if he saw no path for himself." Read more at The New York Times.

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that Never-Trump Republicans can ever find a way to take back control of the GOP. The party is owned by the former president now, and most of the alternatives are only alternatives in that they've embraced Trumpism but they're not morons. Everybody else is pretty much in exile or dodging death threats.

But maybe there's still a sliver of hope for the Never Trumpers, and it comes from — of all people — Chris Christie.

The former New Jersey governor sounds ready to take on the mantle of challenging Trump from within the party. In a new interview with Axios published Thursday, Christie once again made the case that it's time for the GOP to stop litigating the 2020 election and instead look ahead. "I want to spend my time combating the policies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — and trying to help Republicans win governorships and the House and the Senate in 2022," he said.

That's the kind of thing that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says often, but nobody's touting him as the great Never-Trump Hope. What makes Christie different is that he isn't ducking Trump's attacks on any Republican who says such things. "I'm not gonna get into a back-and-forth with Donald Trump," Christie told Axios. "But what I will say is this: When I ran for reelection in 2013, I got 60 percent of the vote. When he ran for reelection, he lost to Joe Biden."

Why does Christie have a chance? Because in some ways he was the ur-Trump, a politician who rocketed to fame a decade ago by snarling and verbally beating up on Democrats — as well as the occasional public school teacher — before the former president really made an art of it on Twitter. If Never Trumpers are looking for somebody who is willing to respect the electoral process while also appealing to the Republican Party's "but he fights!" base, Christie might be their man.

There are drawbacks. Christie did leave office with just a 19 percent approval rating, under the cloud of the George Washington bridge scandal. He memorably lost a presidential primary to Trump once. And given how Christie aided and abetted Trump for much of the last five years, some Never Trumpers think the former governor is a bit late to the party.

What other options are there, though? It's unlikely that Never-Trump Republicans can continue to be both "Never Trump" and "Republican." But if they're going to keep trying, Chris Christie might just be their best choice.

"The GOP is plunging into open warfare over President-elect Joe Biden's election victory" and President Trump's "increasing embrace of conspiracy theorists as the defeated president and his most ardent allies continue to plot efforts to subvert the outcome of the Nov. 3 election," The Washington Post reports. "Advisers and allies who have called Trump to check in or wish him a merry Christmas have been encouraged to go on TV and fight for him amid complaints that others are not doing so."

Two Trump allies, veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), did go on Fox News on Tuesday, but not to back Trump's election fraud conspiracies or the most prominent figures enabling him, fringy lawyer Sidney Powell and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Trump is "intrigued" by Powell's conspiracies, one person told the Post, but others around him are telling him "it's crazy and she has no idea what she's talking about."

Flynn's suggestion to send the military to force a handful of states to redo their elections is "an idiotic idea," Rove told Fox's John Roberts. "There's no ability for any president to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1803, claiming that the issue has got to do with the hubbub around the election." Flynn is "at the bottom of the list" of people who should be advising Trump about politics, he added, and as for Powell, "what she has done to sort of throw mud on the president through her antics is unbelievable," Rove added. "The president has been so ill-served by this crowd, and she's chief among them."

Christie agreed about Flynn and told Fox News' Martha MacCallum that the push by Powell and her allies to try to overturn Biden's win "is a very, very dangerous thing." Peter Weber

Chris Christie isn't happy with President Trump's premature claim of victory in the 2020 election.

The former New Jersey governor on Wednesday criticized Trump after he prematurely claimed victory in the presidential race while baselessly alleging a "major fraud on our nation" as votes in key states continued to be counted and no candidate had collected 270 electoral votes.

"There's just no basis to make that argument tonight," Christie told ABC News. "There just isn't. All these votes have to be counted that are in now."

Christie went on to say that "I disagree with what" Trump did, adding that the president must "let the process play itself out" before claiming it to be "flawed" as he did in his speech.

"I think by prematurely doing this, if there is a flaw in it later, he has undercut his own credibility in calling attention to that flaw," Christie said. "So I think it's a bad strategic decision, it's a bad political decision, and it's not the kind of decision you would expect someone to make tonight who holds the position he holds."

Christie, who recently helped Trump with 2020 debate prep, was among the Republicans calling out Trump's premature victory speech. Former Republican Senator Rick Santorum said he was "distressed" by Trump's remarks, while former National Security Adviser John Bolton said the comments were a "disgrace" and "some of the most irresponsible comments that a president of the United States has ever made." Brendan Morrow

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) helped President Trump prepare for Tuesday night's debate against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and while he was quick to pan Biden's performance, Christie didn't have a lot of praise for Trump either.

Trump spent much of the debate interrupting and talking over both Biden and moderator Chris Wallace, and when ABC News' George Stephanopoulos asked Christie if this was the debate they prepared for, Christie responded, "No." He called Biden "very shaky" and said he wasn't "reassuring," but Trump was "too hot. You come in and decide you want to be aggressive and I think it was the right thing to be aggressive, but that was too hot. I think that what happens is with all that heat, you lose the light."

On CNN, Rick Santorum, the former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, was asked by Anderson Cooper if he was "proud of the president tonight." Looking slightly terrified, Santorum said, "I thought the president was going to come out hot, and as I predicted, he came out hot." Santorum laughed a little after he said this, and Cooper responded, "It's not even funny. Are you actually proud of the president of the United States?" Santorum replied, "I think the president overplayed his hand tonight."

Meanwhile, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who is contractually obligated to praise Trump, tweeted that he "made a confident, commanding, and compelling case for his re-election," adding that the choice between Trump's "47 months of delivering real results versus Biden's 47 years as a failed, career politician has never been clearer."

After slamming President Trump's "revolving door" of "amateurs, grifters," and "felons" last year, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is reportedly back visiting the White House.

Christie, Politico reports, spent the day in the West Wing on Friday as the president's team gears up for the Senate's upcoming impeachment trial.

The former New Jersey governor competed against Trump for the 2016 Republican nomination and was later ousted from Trump's transition team. Last year, he released a book in which he wrote that Trump surrounds himself with "a revolving door of deeply flawed individuals — amateurs, grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons."

Christie also revealed that he turned down offers to join the administration no fewer than seven times, and he suggested in an interview that some in Trump's inner circle were "lying" about Russia because "bad people and stupid people lie for no reason."

Despite his harsh words, the former governor in December launched a pro-Trump advocacy group, saying there has been "a lack of attention on the positive things the administration has done for the country." As Politico reports, the Trump administration has been preparing a "made-for-TV" defense of Trump ahead of the trial, and Trump is closely monitoring the image his defense portrays as he seeks "to get his side of the story told."

The specific reason for Christie's West Wing visit isn't clear, but when he launched his pro-Trump group, he said he's "always tried to get the other part of the story out there to the people."

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D), both former presidential candidates, assessed Thursday night's Democratic debate on live late-night TV. And they largely agreed on who won.

Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.) "proved she deserves to be on the stage tonight, for sure," Christie told The Late Show's Stephen Colbert. "First debates are about proving who belongs and who doesn't. ... And Harris tonight proved what I've known all along: Prosecutors know how to do that. ... They know how to ask a question, they know how to deliver a punch, they know how to do it with a smile on their face, and they know how to look righteous when they're doing it. And she did all that tonight."

Harris "laid some real punches" on frontrunner Joe Biden, Christie added, "although I thought his best moments in the debate was when he was going back and forth with her because he was a little more himself." Overall, "it was a tough night for Biden, but he has room to be able to have a tough night, so I think he's okay," he added. Christie said it's time to say goodbye to Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), and NBC's Chuck Todd, "the most pretentious know-it-all on network news."

Dean told The Daily Show's Trevor Noah "it was a damn good debate," and "I think Kamala did great. I think, actually, Biden did pretty well defending himself." And he said it's too soon to start winnowing the field, though he did warn his fellow Democrats about "whacking Trump" in debates. "Trump will do that to himself," he said. "If we're talking about Trump three weeks before the election, we lose. Trump will remind us every day that we don't like him. We need to talk about the stuff they were talking about tonight."

Looking ahead to the 2020 general election debates, Christie said Harris and Biden would be a good match for Trump, and as for Trump, "the biggest weakness he has is, you know, swinging at every pitch." Watch below. Peter Weber

The House Intelligence and Oversight Committees are in the beginning stages of an investigation into how President Trump's White House handles security clearances. After The New York Times and The Washington Post reported Thursday evening that Trump had personally overruled intelligence officials and his staff to give Jared Kushner top-secret clearance, House Democrats focused on Kushner being Trump's son-in-law. "There is no nepotism exception for background investigations," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told the Post. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) noted that Congress is watching.

On CNN Thursday night, former Gov. Chris Christie (R) was on the same page, telling Chris Cuomo this story highlights "the biggest problem with having family in official positions in the White House, because it's much harder to be objective." He and Cuomo agreed that the story is damning and likely accurate. "And again, Chris, it goes back to the familial relationship," Christie said. "It goes back to the idea that for any other staff member, I think the president would have a much easier time saying 'Listen, no, I'm not getting involved.'"

But Cuomo said focusing on the nepotism is "a step sideways from the actual problem," namely that Trump "has no problem lying to the American people about things he thinks he needs to." Christie said Trump really has a tendency to "lie about things that he hasn't needed to lie about — that's worse in many respects." He mentioned the Stormy Daniels hush-money payment. But regarding the Times report, "there's no way to defend" Trump's behavior, "and I'm not going to," Christie said, "and I have to assume its true because the White House didn't deny it, nor did Jared's lawyer." Watch below. Peter Weber

President Trump has reason to be concerned about Michael Cohen's congressional testimony, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says.

Christie on Wednesday observed that during the first few hours of Cohen's testimony, "There hasn't been one Republican yet who's tried to defend the president on the substance. I think that's something that should be concerning to the White House."

Indeed, Republicans in the first stretch of the Cohen testimony mainly went after the former Trump attorney's credibility, but they didn't exactly refute any of the allegations he has made, including that Trump personally reimbursed him for an illegal hush-money payment while in office. Christie suggested that the fact that Republicans aren't defending Trump could either be "a failure of those Republicans on the Hill, or a failure of the White House to have a unified strategy."

Either way, Christie said people are going to get "tired" of hearing attacks on Cohen's credibility all day because even though Cohen isn't a credible witness, "he does have corroboration on certain things." Watch Christie's take below. Brendan Morrow

President Trump has already begun targeting several of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates with insults — but Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has remained a surprising exception.

Trump has already mocked Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) for announcing her presidential run in the middle of a blizzard, and he's continued to hammer on the controversy surrounding Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) claimed Native American heritage. But the president has said very little about Harris aside from an official White House tweet over the summer claiming that the senator was "supporting" MS-13 gang members. In fact, more recently he's even paid Harris what might be considered a compliment.

"I would say the best opening so far would be Kamala Harris," Trump said in an interview with The New York Times, responding to a question about which Democratic candidate might be the toughest challenger in 2020. "Better crowd, better enthusiasm. Some of the others were very flat."

Trump has also so far refrained from bestowing upon Harris one of his signature nicknames. The president's scathing monikers — "Crooked" Hillary Clinton, "'Cryin'" Chuck Schumer, and Warren's "Pocahontas" frequently appear on his Twitter feed. On the last campaign trail, he belittled other Republican nominees as well, dubbing Sen. Marco Rubio "Little Marco" and Jeb Bush "Low Energy Jeb."

Nothing for Harris, though. As former New Jersey governor Chris Christie recently explained, "If he respects you, you don't get a nickname, because he's afraid what's going to come back", before pointing out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) similarly has no epithet. For now, at least, it seems that Harris is in that same league.

Chris Christie's friendships truly bridge the political spectrum.

In a Friday interview with The Washington Post, the Republican and former New Jersey governor heaped praise on Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who just became the latest addition to 2020's presidential candidate swarm. Christie said he and Booker have been "friends for 15 years," and from his experience, the fellow New Jerseyite has "a legitimate chance to be a serious potential problem for the president."

When asked to describe Booker, Christie quickly listed the senator as "talented, smart, articulate." He touted Booker's more conservative viewpoints on school vouchers and how the former Newark mayor was "tough on crime," but cautioned that Booker would could only succeed if he didn't "go way wacky left."

Christie's comments come just days after saying he and President Trump "were friends for 17 years." But that use of the past tense hints that maybe, just maybe, he's taken his relationships a step to the left.

Chris Christie says he and President Trump "were friends for 17 years." Maybe the former New Jersey governor should reconsider.

For starters, Trump surrounds himself with "a revolving door of deeply flawed individuals—amateurs, grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons," Christie writes in his new book Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics. That's because Trump pays the most attention to "people who he doesn't perceive as loyal," Christie told The Atlantic in an interview published Thursday. That's why Trump's staff ends up full of "bad people and stupid people [who] lie for no reason," Christie said. Trump also "hires on impulse," like the time he "offered secretary of state to Rex Tillerson the first time he met him," Christie continued.

But Christie is sure to point out that "the president doesn't always get it wrong." After all, he almost picked Christie as his running mate, he acknowledged to The Atlantic. The two "went out to dinner ... three or four times a year for 15 years," Christie said, adding that "before [Trump] ran for office, this was a really fun guy." Trump was "funny, conversational," and was "the first guy to tell me I should get a Lap-Band" surgery, Christie said. "You gotta look better to be able to win" elections, Trump told him, per Patch.

That blunt suggestion didn't seem to be a breaking point in Christie and Trump's relationship. Still, it's hard not to notice the past tense Christie uses to describe his longtime friend. Read more from Christie at The Atlantic.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was Stephen Colbert's guest on Tuesday's Late Show, and at his request, they began the interview with tequila shots. "Where do you think the wheels came off during the shutdown?" Colbert asked. "The president blew it," Christie replied. "When?" Colbert asked, and Christie answered: "When he shut the government down with no plan on how to reopen it." Christie said he warned Trump beforehand that "if you're going to do this, you'd better have an exit plan." That obviously didn't happen, "and he got goose egg," Colbert said. "Yes, in politics, we call that getting rolled," Christie said.

Christie said it hurts him "personally" when Trump undermines democracy by attacking the Justice Department and the FBI. So after two years, "do you regret at all helping this man get elected?" Colbert asked. Christie grabbed the bottle of tequila. He said in 2016 he preferred Trump to Hillary Clinton, "and I still agree with what his policies are more than I agree with Hillary Clinton's," but it's true Trump "has turned the Republican Party into something different that it was when I started to run for president." "Yeah, the Kremlin," Colbert joked.

Colbert asked what Christie gets out of his 17-year friendship with the infamously transactional Trump. "He demands loyalty, he doesn't seem that loyal himself," Colbert said. "He'll toss anybody under the bus." "You think I don't know?" Christie asked, laughing. "I'm the guy who got fired from the transition." That stung, but "we have one president at a time, and if I can do anything to make him better, if I can do anything that helps the country, that's my job to do," he said. "Believe me, my wife ain't happy about it either."

"Would you have been a better president than Trump?" Colbert asked. "Yes," Christie said, no hesitation. They ended with a spirited discussion of who exactly likes Christie anymore. Watch below. Peter Weber

Chris Christie quite literally has enough problems with Jared Kushner to fill a book.

The former New Jersey governor is set to publish Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics, which presumably spills a lot of dirt about President Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law. If the title wasn't evidence enough, Politico printed a section of the book Friday, describing what Christie calls Kushner's plan "to derail my appointment as transition chairman."

In the spring of 2016, Christie stopped by Trump Tower to look over a press release announcing his appointment as Trump transition chair, he says in the Politico excerpt. Trump had just told Christie he was "really happy" about the appointment when they "heard a soft voice coming from just inside the open office door," Christie writes. It was Kushner, who Christie says he "didn't really know" at the time — except for the fact that he'd prosecuted Kushner's father in a massive tax evasion scheme a decade earlier.

As Trump told Kushner that Christie would be running the transition, "Jared's face remained stubbornly blank," Christie wrote. Kushner started to say Trump was "rushing" on this decision, but soon revealed his real gripes: Christie "tried to destroy my father," Kushner said, via Christie's recollection. Kushner spewed "very raw feelings that had been simmering for nearly a dozen years," maintaining his "soft quiver" of a voice the whole time, as Christie describes it.

Trump didn't seem convinced by Kushner's "decade-old rantings," Christie said, and offered they all work out the problem over dinner. Kushner turned him down, and Christie went on to become the transition chair. But that was far from the end of Kushner's "little game," Christie ominously finished. Read the whole excerpt from Let Me Finish at Politico.

One week after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's talk about drug addiction went viral on Facebook, garnering more than 6.5 million views and nearly 90,000 shares as of Friday morning, the Republican presidential candidate says he's floored by the response to the video.

In the clip, Christie makes an emotional plea for drug addiction rehabilitation while speaking at a New Hampshire town hall, sharing moving personal stories about his mother's cigarette addiction and a former heroin addict whom he gave an internship to when he was U.S. attorney. "Somehow, if it's heroin or cocaine or alcohol, we say, 'They decided it, they're getting what they deserved,'" Christie said.

Now, one week later, Christie says that the clip's viral success makes an important point:

After months of polling poorly and struggling to gain center stage in a very full Republican race, could Christie finally be having his moment?

Watch his full speech below. Becca Stanek

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Jeb Bush has announced he is "actively exploring the possibility of running for president of the United States" in 2016, a dramatic entry into the field of Republican hopefuls from a man whose father and brother were both president.

Bush has been dubbed 'the smart brother' and is said to be more level-headed than his sibling George W. He was governor of Florida in 2000 when his brother defeated Al Gore in an election that hinged on recounted votes in that state.

While the wording of the 61-year-old's Facebook and Twitter announcement might seem non-committal to outsiders, the US media reaction suggests there is a strong chance Bush will be his party's next candidate for the White House.

His entry to the race changes everything, says the Washington Post. It "scrambles the large Republican field, thrusting him to the front of the pack and locking up a huge swath of longtime party fundraisers being wooed by other candidates".

Those candidates whose financial backers are now set to desert them for Bush, according to the Post, include New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Texas governor Rick Perry and Florida senator Marco Rubio.

Bush's candidacy also makes it less likely that 2012 nominee Mitt Romney will stand again, says the Post. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll yesterday, Bush took a narrow lead over the rest of the field, if Romney was not included.

The news raises the interesting possibility of a clash between political dynasties in the 2016 race: Hillary Clinton is widely expected to stand for the Democrat nomination. Her husband, Bill Clinton, unseated Jeb's father 22 years ago.

MSNBC says the two families have become close over the decades. George W considers Bill Clinton to be his "brother from another mother", says the broadcaster, while Bill Clinton looks on the elder George Bush as a father figure.

But there are "plenty of people in both parties unhappy with another Clinton-Bush face-off", says MSNBC. It adds: "Liberals and conservatives alike might view the matchup as lacking real contest."

Bush may have one big advantage for his party as a candidate: it is thought he can attract the Latino vote. This section of the electorate is seen as crucial for the Republican party, which can no longer rely on the old, white, male vote to see it over the finish line.

Despite speaking perfect Spanish and having a Mexican wife, Bush has been oversold as a draw for the Latino vote, says Gustavo Arellano, editor of OC Weekly. Writing for The Guardian, Arellano says Latinos are not as conservative as they used to be.

Latinos are "as tired of political dynasties as they are of gringos", says Arellano. A better idea might be for Jeb to "sit this one out" and encourage his half-Mexican son, George P Bush, to run in 2024, he suggests.

Also for The Guardian, Suzanne Goldenberg says Jeb Bush may be smarter than George W, but he is an "out-and-out flat-earther" on the subject of climate change - a lot more radical than his brother. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has said she will defend the progress Barack Obama has made on the issue.

THERE is increasing speculation in Washington DC that the 2016 presidential election to find Barack Obama's successor could be run between two of America's greatest/most infamous (take your pick) modern political families – the Clintons and the Bushes.

Hillary Clinton, wife of Bill, has been the likely Democrat contender for ages, although she still has to confirm whether she'll run. Now the Washington Post is reporting that, with their leading centre-right candidate Chris Christie going down in flames because of various scandals unearthed in New Jersey, "influential Republicans" are working to persuade Jeb Bush to stand.

"[Jeb] Bush has travelled the country delivering policy speeches, campaigning for Republicans ahead of the fall midterm elections, honing messages on income inequality and foreign policy, and cultivating ties with wealthy benefactors — all signals that he is considering a run," says the Post.

His father, George H W Bush, was the 41st president, and his younger brother George W Bush the 43rd. Might this be Jeb's turn?

The idea may appeal to some wealthy Republicans, but it is not going down well with political commentators on either side of the Atlantic.

The Spectator's Alex Massie says a Bush-Clinton race would be perfect for cable news - a soap opera "to make you puke" but one Americans would have to watch.

But if this is the best the Republicans can do, says Massie, it's hard not to conclude that the Republican party is exhausted. "Since (from a conservative perspective) Jeb’s father and brother each disappointed – albeit in rather different ways – there’s something quaintly optimistic about suggesting third time lucky with the Bushes."

In America, Myra Adams for the Daily Beast has compiled five good reasons for the Republicans to think again – two of which are his name and his politics.

His name, in short, is poison: and that's not just the political pundits talking, but the great American public. A recent Washington Post poll found 50 per cent of registered voters said they would definitely NOT vote for Jeb Bush, proving that the negative legacy of brother George remains potent.

As for Jeb's politics, in short he's not right-wing enough to win over enough of the party's supporters. He's "soft" on immigration – he supports an amnesty and he even has a Mexican-born wife, Columba – and he's a "moderate" when it comes to issues like public education.

All of which is rather unfair on Jeb who, if his brother hadn't made such a hash of it, and if the Republicans hadn't turned so far right since the Bush era, might actually be considered a perfectly reasonable choice for the Republican nomination having been Governor of Florida from 1999 – 2007.

There are, however, skeletons ready to tumble out of the closet: in his first year as Governor, his wife Columba was caught by customs agents at Atlanta airport trying to bring in $19,000 worth of clothes and jewellery from Paris. And their daughter, Noelle, has had her run-ins with the authorities over drugs. But at least he hasn't started any wars.

What does brother George say? When asked on CNN a year ago about Jeb running, Dubya responded: "Well, big Jeb, you know, he's got a decision to make. And if I could make it for him, it'd be, 'run,' but I can't."

He added: "I don't know what he's going to do… He'd be a great candidate and a great president."

Would the famous Bush family matriarch, Barbara, back another son to run for the White House?

"Jeb's the best qualified man, but no," she said. “I think it's a great country. There are a lot of great families, and it's not just four families or whatever. There are other people out there that are very qualified and we've had enough Bushes,” she said.

Who could put it better?

HAS the other shoe just dropped on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s naked ambition for the White House?

The second Christie scandal inside a week broke early yesterday with a timing which suggests that the rotund but curiously charismatic Governor is not the only politician in New Jersey ready and willing to play hardball.

News that Washington officials are investigating the diversion of federal relief funds for Superstorm Sandy to promote Jersey Shore tourism with advertisements featuring Christie himself could hardly have come at a more awkward time.

Christie would have gone to bed on Sunday feeling much better. 'Bridgegate', the saga of how an act of petty political revenge caused days of traffic jams on the Fort Lee ramps to the George Washington Bridge over to Manhattan, was beginning to look survivable.

The scandal, and Christie’s aspirations for the Republican nomination for the presidential elections of 2016, had been the number one topic on the Sunday television talk shows which have become America’s political forum.

Phalanxes of “senior Republicans” had been rallied to the microphones to answer the question: can Christie survive. The majority view was “yes”.

Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate who failed against President Obama in 2008, declared that Christie had done “an excellent job” in holding a press conference that lasted 111 minutes and instantly firing two top aides implicated in ordering the disruption to bridge traffic.

“I think he can now move on,” said McCain.

But then he added a note of caution: “As long as another shoe doesn’t drop. We’ll have to wait and see.”

We did not have to wait very long. The question now is whether Christie can survive this second shoe.

Christie had been considered the nearest thing to a frontrunner since he catapulted himself onto the national stage by escorting President Obama through the ruins of the New Jersey coastal communities after Sandy struck just before the 2012 elections.

Comforting old ladies with hugs, putting aside partisan politics to join forces with Obama for the sake of his people, Christie immediately became the face of the Republican Party they wished they had had when the mean-spirited Mitt Romney and his Tea Party allies led them to electoral rout.

Superstorm Sandy became Christie’s brand, and to have an investigation into whether he improperly spent funds intended for the storm’s victims on self-promotion could hardly be more tarnishing.

Congressman Frank Pallone, whose name, like Christie’s, ends Italian-style in a vowel, is a New Jersey Democrat in Washington who has long locked horns with Christie. It was he who trumpeted the news that the inspector general of the Housing and Urban Development Office (HUD) was investigating the use of the $25 million Sandy funds.

Pallone had spotted his chance last summer when he wrote a formal letter to HUD demanding the investigation into how the governor had distributed the funds. He wrote that he and his colleagues were “concerned” that some of the money had been used to finance a “marketing campaign”, and he went on, they wondered why a bid of $2.5m for the campaign, which would not feature Christie or his family, had been rejected in favour of a $4.7m bid for one which would.

Pallone was in triumphant mood yesterday after giving the cable news station its exclusive story.

“I commend the HUD Office of the Inspector General for investigating whether the state properly utilized taxpayer funds for this marketing campaign,” he said.

“Working with my New Jersey colleagues, we had to fight hard to get the Sandy aid package passed by assuring others in Congress the funding was desperately needed and would be spent responsibly. I also raised concerns that Governor Christie and his family appeared in taxpayer-funded advertisements during an election year.”

Voters in Pallone’s congressional district must surely be bracing themselves for traffic chaos.

Christie’s best chance of reviving his White House hopes still lies in the chaos of the current Republican presidential field.

“Republicans appear headed for the most wide-open and unpredictable nomination campaign in decades,” writes Dan Balz in a column for the Washington Post. “Their prospective field of candidates is mostly untested on the national stage, and a number of them spent the past year generating questions about their readiness rather than burnishing their credentials. Christie is just the latest.

“But that’s not the only reason the coming GOP campaign is likely to be neither tidy nor predictable. A power struggle is underway between the party’s establishment and insurgent wings — the business elite and the populist Tea Party factions. No one is certain what the balance of power in the party will be when the primaries and caucuses begin.”

Christie as the tough guy with the straight talk and the heart of gold had been looking like the outsider candidate who could appeal to both sides of the Republican party and, just possibly, to both sides of America.

Now he just looks like the guy who blew it.

NEW JERSEY governor Chris Christie is being investigated over claims he used Superstorm Sandy relief funds to make tourism ads starring him and his family.

News of the investigation couldn't come at a worse time for the "scandal-plagued Republican", says CNN. Late last week he was forced to sack two aides who allegedly ordered the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge as part of a vendetta against a political opponent.

Christie's office has been "paralysed" by the bridge scandal which is about to trigger a "flurry of subpoenas", according to reports.

CNN says the federal probe examining New Jersey's use of $25m in relief funds for a marketing campaign to boost tourism in the state, could be even more damaging to Christie's political ambitions than the bridge scandal. That's because the governor's performance during and after the storm has been "widely praised and is a fundamental part of his straight-shooting political brand".

The New York Post understands that Christie's deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, and his campaign manager, Bill Stepien, are likely to be issued with subpoenas as early as today in relation to the bridge scandal. Kelly allegedly orchestrated the lane closures in an effort to undermine a New Jersey mayor who refused to support Christie's re-election campaign; Stepien was "kept in the loop" about the plan.

The pair are among the targets of the state Assembly committee investigating the lane closures. Asked how many people would be ordered to appear before the committee, Assembly deputy speaker John Wisniewski said: "The list is fairly large".

Christie continues to insist he had no knowledge of the plan. But fallout from the scandal has caused a "ripple effect that's frozen several top moves and appointments," the Post says.

Sources told the paper that Democrats in the state senate have delayed the confirmation hearing for Kevin O'Dowd, Christie's nominee for attorney general. The senators "want time to gather more information so they can grill O'Dowd on what he knew about the closure of lanes on the country's busiest bridge as part of a political vendetta," the Post says.

The scandal has also stopped O'Dowd's "named replacement", Regina Egea, moving into his old job overseeing state agencies.

Fox News's Howard Kurtz says the US press has increasingly painted Christie as a "bully" and even if he can't be linked to the bridge scandal, serious damage has been done to his reputation.

"The sheer callousness of Christie's top aides in celebrating the traffic chaos they unleashed upon the town of Fort Lee and its Democratic mayor has the media saying, 'even if he didn't know about it, is this the tone he set for the office'?" writes Kurtz.

He adds: "The bridge scandal could quickly fade and become a mere footnote by the time 2016 [the year of the presidential election] rolls around. But in this new environment, any Christie outburst or act of retaliation could reignite the damaging debate."

NEW JERSEY governor Chris Christie has fired the aide who sent emails ordering the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge last year to damage a political opponent.

Christie told journalists he had “terminated” deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, who asked for the closures in a bid to damage the credibility of a New Jersey mayor who had not supported the governor’s re-election campaign. Christie insisted he had no knowledge of the plot, apologised profusely and said he felt “heartbroken and betrayed” that a staffer had lied to him.

The governor added that he had not spoken to Kelly since the emails were published in the press and says he does not know why she would have lied to him, the New York Post reports.

But who is Kelly, the woman who wrote “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” in an email sent on 13 August last year, three weeks before several access lanes to the bridge were closed? What kind of person would deliberately cause chaos that delayed ambulances and left school children trapped in buses?

The Post describes 41-year-old Kelly as a “typical suburban mom” who sends her four children to Catholic schools.

A woman whose children attend the same school as Kelly’s offspring told the paper: “I am just shocked that she [Kelly] could be so petty and reckless.”

The Post also revealed that Kelly’s brother, Eamon Daul, is an emergency worker who trains new ambulance officers. The paper points out that his sister’s “bridge stunt” delayed responses to 911 calls, including one to a 91-year-old woman who died before an ambulance could reach her, officials and family members have said.

The New York Times says Christie apologised for the bridge saga “the Christie way: excessively, vaingloriously, in large, vivid and personal terms”.

“He seemed to want to talk the scandal away,” the NYT says, “droning on for so long at the State House that reporters started repeating their inquiries, even asking for his response to a news story that had popped up as he was talking.”

CHRIS CHRISTIE, the Republican governor of New Jersey, is often cited as a future president because of his ability to build bridges between both sides of politics.

Unfortunately for Christie, it is a bridge - a real one rather than a metaphor - that is threatening to stop his glittering political career dead in its tracks.

Emails obtained by the US press show that one of the governor's senior staffers "conspired to cause traffic chaos near a town controlled by a political opponent", The Guardian reports. The chaos was unleashed by closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge, a double-decked suspension bridge that forms the main conduit between New York and New Jersey.

The lane closures on the world's busiest bridge had the desired effect, reports NorthJersey.com, as traffic piled up. However, the jams also delayed ambulance teams from reaching four patients, including a 91-year-old woman who later died in hospital.

The alleged target of the lane closures was the mayor of Fort Lee, a New Jersey town, who had refused to endorse Christie's successful re-election bid. But it is the governor who is feeling the heat, says the BBC, as Americans ponder the "obvious alleged abuse of power" that could "prove very damaging if it can be directly tied to Mr Christie".

The man himself insists it can't. He says he is "outraged" by the actions disclosed in the emails and has vowed to punish those responsible for ordering the lane closures.

But political commentators say the man widely tipped as a potential frontrunner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has certainly been wounded by the scandal. Writing in the Washington Post, Jonathan Capehart notes that Christie cancelled his sole public engagement yesterday as anger over the lane closures intensified.

Writes Capehart: "Like all bullies, he's running away from a real fight. And it shows that he realises that his political standing at home and nationally is in danger."

The US political website TalkingPointsMemo says Christie's political future has been seriously damaged.

TPM's Joshua Marshall writes: "It's not bribery or killing someone or a high crime. But it's vindictive and quite possibly illegal. It's almost the definition of an abuse of power. It won't sink Christie. At least not the evidence so far. But it will hang around his neck forever as that bad thing Christie's operation did that supposedly (depending on whether you're a friend or enemy) tells you what the real Chris Christie is about."