Former Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently joined ABC News Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos for an exclusive interview. During the interview, Christie discussed why he dropped out of the running for the Republican nomination and shared his thoughts on the 2024 election cycle. Among the topics covered, Christie also expressed his views on No Labels and their efforts to field a presidential ticket in a Biden and Trump matchup, including the possibility of Christie himself.
Christie withdrew from the presidential race last month, just weeks before the New Hampshire Republican primary. He chose not to endorse Trump’s closest opponent, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and was caught denigrating her in a hot-mic scenario during a campaign event, for which he offered no apologies.
During his interview with Stephanopoulos, Christie discussed his plans for the upcoming New Jersey Republican primary in June and the November general election. He stated that he doesn’t anticipate having anyone on the primary ballot to support and has no intention of writing himself in. However, he emphasized that he would not support Donald Trump under any circumstances in the November election.
Christie: The one thing I can tell you for sure is that I don’t know what I’m going to do in November, but I’m not voting for Donald Trump under any circumstances.
Stephanopoulos: But isn’t any vote that’s not for Joe Biden—assuming it’s the two of them and a handful of third party candidates—isn’t any vote that’s not for Joe Biden a vote for Donald Trump?
Christie: Well, we can get into all the technicalities in—
Stephanopoulos: No, no, I think it’s pretty clear that at this point—
Christie: You know this as well as I do; in my state, my vote is not gonna matter a lick. Okay? I don’t know who the full field’s going to be yet, and there might be a No Labels candidate who I might—
Stephanopoulos: Well, No Labels is going to drain more from Joe Biden than Donald Trump, isn’t it?
Christie: I think it depends on who they nominate, I think it depends on who they nominate. If they nominate a strong Republican, it might not be the case.
Good Morning America Interview, 2/6/2024
Christie also mentioned that No Labels had yet to approach him about being on the organization’s presidential ticket, despite previous statements from founding chairman Joe Lieberman.
While Christie did not explicitly reject running under the No Labels banner, he redirected the question and indicated that it would require a lengthy conversation with his wife. When Stephanopoulos noted that he wasn’t closing the door to potentially being a No Labels candidate, Christie said he would first need to see a path to 270 electoral votes.
Christie also pointed to the 2024 presidential election as a unique opportunity for a third party candidate to make an impact. “If there was ever a time in our lifetime when a third party candidate could make a difference, I think it’s now,” he said. “The question is what kind of difference.”
Readers can access a recording of the interview on the CNN website.
NF, I don’t know if they will put forward a ticket or not, and I don’t know whether that will be fortunate or unfortunate.
Stephanopoulos is representative of one wing of “the media.” Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, various radio talk show hosts and callers, podcasters, influential social media and video sharing accounts of various types, etc, etc, may have different takes.
No Labels will probably poll how different candidates who may be considering running with them impact the election and whether they have what they interpret to be a path to win over the next week or two. They’ve made it clear they will only nominate if 1) Trump and Biden look set to be nominated (seems like a safe bet right now to me), 2) who ever they nominate has what they believe to be a path to actually win.
They’ve said, or strongly indicated, they will poll how a bunch of prospective possible candidates are likely to impact the election and whether they will have a path to winning, in their opinion.
The media narratives about who they help or hurt if they do run in different types and leanings of media will differ based on a lot of things – who it is, various polls once they have an actual nominee, polls about who or she helps or hurts or looks like may or may not win, etc.
If Stephanopoulos keeps saying, let’s say for example, a Haley-Bloomberg ticket helps Trump, and Sean Hannity says it hurts Trump and helps Biden, how do we gauge the relative influence of all the kinds of media out there and all the different ways they are consumed by different kinds of people out there? The answer is far less obvious than in past decades.
Make that next week or two.
NF, I don’t know if they will put forward a ticket or not, and I don’t know whether that will be fortunate or unfortunate.
Stephanopoulos is representative of one wing of “the media.” Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, various radio talk show hosts and callers, podcasters, influential social media and video sharing accounts of various types, etc, etc, may have different takes.
No Labels will probably poll how different candidates who may be considering running with them impact the election and whether they have what they interpret to be a path to win over the next 2-3 months. They’ve made it clear they will only nominate if 1) Trump and Biden look set to be nominated (seems like a safe bet right now to me), 2) who ever they nominate has what they believe to be a path to actually win.
They’ve said, or strongly indicated, they will poll how a bunch of prospective possible candidates are likely to impact the election and whether they will have a path to winning, in their opinion.
The media narratives about who they help or hurt if they do run in different types and leanings of media will differ based on a lot of things – who it is, various polls once they have an actual nominee, polls about who or she helps or hurts or looks like may or may not win, etc.
If Stephanopoulos keeps saying, let’s say for example, a Haley-Bloomberg ticket helps Trump, and Sean Hannity says it hurts Trump and helps Biden, how do we gauge the relative influence of all the kinds of media out there and all the different ways they are consumed by different kinds of people out there? The answer is far less obvious than in past decades.
Unfortunately, I doubt No Labels will even put forth a ticket. Stephanopoulos is most likely representative of most mainstream “journalists” and no matter who they might nominate the media will say they are just pulling votes from Biden whether remotely true or not.