Patterico's Pontifications

10/30/2016

Too Good to Check: Trump Offered VP Slot to Christie — and Then Took it Back

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 4:30 pm



Sure, the report is based on anonymous sources, and as such is not really to be trusted . . . but come on. I think we can all agree that, whether you’re a Trump fan or not, it’s just good clean American fun at this point to point and laugh at Chris Christie. So let’s suspend our disbelief, the way we do for an action-packed but implausible Hollywood blockbuster, and enjoy this story for the sheer schadenfreude of it all.

Plus, a lot of it rings true. Why, just listen to the first quoted source in the piece:

“Trump cares about who’s the most loyal and who kisses his a– the most, not who’s the most qualified and what’s the best political decision,” said a source close to the campaign. “If it was up to him, it would have been Christie.”

That’s our Donald all right!

Christie contacted Trump and made his final, impassioned ­appeal on July 12.

“Christie said he thinks he deserves it and he earned it,” a second Trump source said. Convinced, Trump made the ­offer.

Christie “said all the BS that Trump likes to hear, and Trump said, ‘Yeah, sure I’m giving it to you.’”

That didn’t sit well with Manafort, who had arranged for Trump to meet Pence in Indianapolis on July 13, and fly back together to New York the next day for a formal announcement.

After Trump tentatively decided on Christie, Manafort told Trump his plane had a mechanical problem, campaign sources said, forcing Trump to spend another night in the Hoosier State. Pence then made his case to be Trump’s No. 2 over dinner as Trump’s advisers argued that Christie’s Bridgegate troubles would sink the campaign.

“Trump had wanted Christie but Bridgegate would have been the biggest national story,” a third Trump source said. “He’d lose the advantage of not being corrupt.”

Trump agreed to name Pence the next day and broke the news to Christie, saying it would “tear my family apart if I gave you VP,” a source said.

Christie did look particularly grumpy after Pence got the VP nod, but we all figured it was because he lost out. Who knew that he’d actually been promised the job by the Con Artist in Chief himself?

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

14 Responses to “Too Good to Check: Trump Offered VP Slot to Christie — and Then Took it Back”

  1. he’s not my favorite either but poor little america would be immeasurably better off with Mr. Christie as the Attorney General than with corrupt chunky-butt loretta

    in my heart is where i belieber this

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  2. “Tear my family apart” seems to mean it wasn’t Manafort who sank the idea but Kushner. Christie sent Charlie Kushner to prison, after all; that’s not an easy thing to forgive and forget.

    Milhouse (40ca7b)

  3. ‘Squirrel Report’ on Maudie’s Hell Night.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  4. Pence plane suffered enough at LGA; at EWR it would have been directed into a fuel tank.

    urbanleftbehind (4550d2)

  5. I think we heard this before.

    High pressure sales tactics were used against Donald Trump because he was told he had to decide before noon, the deadline for Tim Pence to withdraw his candidacy for Governor of Indiana.

    Trump agreed to name Pence the next day and broke the news to Christie, saying it would “tear my family apart if I gave you VP,” a source said.

    It was said that it was Jared Kushner in particular who did not want Christie. Chris Christie, as U.S. Attorney had put his father in jail, maybe justifiably, at least in the end, but Jared Kushner could have believed his father cracked under the pressure and hired a high end prostitute to seduce his sister’s husband, with the idea either of revenge or harming his credibility because his brother-in-law was a co-operating witness against him.

    Newt Gingrich was also being kept in suspense.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  6. Mr. Pence won his debate

    pervy Mitt Romney’s slicked up boytoy Paul Ryan? lol not so much

    i can’t second-guess Mr. Trump on this

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  7. Conman traveling show

    SPQR (a3a747)

  8. this resembles the naysayers who were for tpaw! and lieberman back in 2008,

    narciso (d1f714)

  9. Wait. . . Trump couldn’t pick Christie because he “would lose the advantage of not being corrupt“??

    Isn’t this on the order of saying: “Bill Clinton shouldn’t hit on women because he would lose the advantage of not being a sleazy pervert?”

    Or: “Gus Hall shouldn’t accept the Lenin Prize because he would lose the advantage of not being a Communist”?

    Or: “John Gotti should quit attending Mafia Commission meetings, lest he lose the advantage of not being a crook”?

    I mean. . . sheesh.

    gwjd (032bef)

  10. Wait. . . Trump couldn’t pick Christie because “”Trump would lose the advantage of not being corrupt“??

    Isn’t this on the order of saying: “Bill Clinton shouldn’t hit on women because he would lose the advantage of not being a sleazy pervert?”

    Or: “Gus Hall shouldn’t accept the Lenin Prize because he would lose the advantage of not being a Communist”?

    Or: “John Gotti should quit attending Mafia Commission meetings, lest he lose the advantage of not being a crook”?

    I mean. . . sheesh.

    gwjd (032bef)

  11. Apologies for the double post.

    gwjd (032bef)

  12. Some must prefer living in a Demockery.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  13. It was Kellyanne Conway. Christie was stealing all her food. Have you seen the poor lady? She still hasn’t recovered.

    nk (dbc370)

  14. three anonymous sources, one of those rubbishing manafort, now one could be lewandowski, another roger stone, perhaps that fellow numberg, who was fired first,

    narciso (d1f714)


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