On Thursday, former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) reacted to the possibility of Donald Trump becoming Speaker of the House during a town hall in New Hampshire.
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00:00 And by the way, we shouldn't be surprised that Donald Trump did that.
00:04 I want to tell you why, because he did business in my state while I was governor.
00:08 The only person who could bankrupt three casinos when we had a monopoly in New Jersey back then.
00:16 It was New Jersey and Nevada.
00:19 How could you not make money running a casino?
00:22 [laughter]
00:24 I want you to think about that.
00:26 Three casinos went bankrupt under his management.
00:30 And the last story that I'll tell you about that was when he said to me,
00:34 when I came in with that $9 billion deficit on a $29 billion budget, we were friends,
00:39 and he picked up the phone and called me and said, "Hey, I read about that deficit. That's brutal."
00:44 He said, "Let me tell you what to do."
00:46 I'm believing, at that moment, I would have taken suggestions from anybody.
00:50 So I said, "Sure, Donald. What do you think?"
00:52 And he said, "Go bankrupt."
00:54 [laughter]
00:56 I said, "I'm sorry. You don't understand.
00:59 The law prevents a state from going bankrupt."
01:03 He goes, "Do it anyway."
01:05 [laughter]
01:06 He said, "They'll sue you.
01:08 By the time the case gets resolved in court two or three years later, everyone will have forgotten about it.
01:13 And you'll be in good shape, but otherwise, you're going to have to make some really hard choices
01:18 that are going to make people really hate you.
01:20 And I want to see you do well."
01:22 And I said, "Should we be surprised that the guy who made that suggestion to me in 2010
01:28 is the guy who ran up $7.8 trillion in debt?"
01:31 Those are just three of the issues, but I want to go back to the first one.
01:37 When we saw what happened in Washington, D.C. two nights ago,
01:43 with a Republican speaker being kicked out of office,
01:46 whether you love Kevin McCarthy or you hate Kevin McCarthy or you're somewhere in between,
01:51 it shows that Republicans can't govern.
01:55 And that's bad for 2024, everybody.
02:00 Really bad.
02:02 And while all this humor was going on in the House of Representatives,
02:07 where was the front-runner for our nomination?
02:10 And our nominee in the last two presidential cycles.
02:14 Was he down in Washington to try to help solve the problem
02:17 and cut off some of his supporters?
02:20 Was he on the phone desperately trying to win votes for McCarthy or for somebody else?
02:25 No.
02:26 He was in a courtroom defending himself against fraud charges.
02:32 And, by the way, everybody, that's where he's going to be for the next year and a half.
02:38 There's this case, then there's the January 6th criminal case,
02:43 then there's the Documents criminal case,
02:46 then there's the criminal case in New York,
02:48 then there's the criminal case in Georgia.
02:50 And, by the way, with all those criminal cases,
02:52 it's not optional to show up, like on the civil cases right now,
02:56 as a condition of bail.
02:59 And remember, he's out on bail in 49 years, there he is.
03:03 He has to be in that courtroom.
03:06 Not fighting Joe Biden.
03:08 Not fighting the Democrats.
03:10 What independent voters in this country are going to vote for that?
03:14 So we better get real about this in New Hampshire as a place, get real about it.
03:18 Character matters. It counts.
03:20 And we better vote for somebody who we think can carry the day and win independent voters
03:24 so we can win the White House back.
03:26 So I'll stop there and take your questions about anything out of your mind.