Will too many cooks spoil the Republican broth?

This is The Guardian.

Another week, another few names added to the ever-growing list of Republicans running for president.

I can't guarantee you success in what I'm about to do.

On Tuesday, the former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, launched his campaign for the Republican nomination. Close behind, just 24 hours later, came the former vice president, Mike Pence.

As your president, I will appoint men and women to our federal courts who will uphold all the God-given liberties enshrined in our Constitution.

And coming in as one of the longer, long shots of the week. The North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, also launched his campaign on Wednesday. In all, there are now 10 candidates running for the nomination, and that tracks the 2016 race, when exactly 10 candidates had announced. By this point, in an already crowded field, can any of them even make a dent in the lead of the front runner? I'm Jonathan Freedland, columnist at The Guardian, and this is Politics Weekly America.

Well, I think it was a very, very clear choice. Given what Donald Trump represented as a never-trumper, that meant never Donald Trump.

Charlie Sykes is the editor-at-large of the bulwark organ of the traditional conservative, never-trump wing of American Republicanism. A lifelong conservative, Charlie nevertheless voted for Joe Biden in 2020..

Until we see something different. We have to assume that. Donald Trump continues to control the fate of the Republican Party, and that his fellow Republicans have not yet figured out how to move him out. The prospect of Trump 2.0 ought to horrify most Americans of all political stripes, because in Trump 2.0 you would, and I think this was David Frum's analogy. This would be like in Jurassic Park, where the velociraptors figured out how to open the doors. Donald Trump has made no secret of what he would do as president. And so I don't think that it's going to be. Would be a difficult choice in a general election, the big question, of course, is whether or not Republicans will force us to make that kind of choice again.

Now there are, by some counts, it depends who you count and how you count. But some 12 entrants in the field to be the Republican nominee, so Republicans, on some level, are spoiled for choice. But who does that hurt? the sheer number, who does it hurt, and who does it help?

Well, there's no question that a big field helps Donald Trump. Donald Trump needs a big field to divide the opposition. That's exactly what happened back in 2015 and 2016, where no one wanted to get out of the race and no one wanted to attack him. Now things are different in that respect this year. But a big field helps Donald Trump because he has a hard core of the Republican base of at least 35, maybe 40 of the vote. So he could, as he did in 2016, roll to the nomination with a plurality, even with a majority of Republicans voting against him.

So that's the big picture, though. But let's talk about the new entrants to the field, starting with the pugilistic former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie.

We have pretenders all around us who want to tell you pick me because I'm kind of like what you picked before, but not quite as crazy.

He himself seems to say he's in there to be an attacking presence, aiming very directly. If he's an attack dog, he's aiming at the ankles of Donald Trump.

For these other pretenders, he is. For those of you who read the Harry Potter books like Voldemort, He is He who shall not be named.

Just tell us, for people who are not absolutely immersed in this, who Chris Christie is, what kind of politician he makes.

Well, first of all, I don't think that Chris Christie is going for the ankles. I think what we saw was his willingness to go for the jugular and this is his style of politics. Now. Let's stipulate that he's got a lot of baggage, let's also stipulate that he's not going to win the Republican nomination. He has no shot whatsoever, but he could still be a very consequential candidate because he is going to aggressively attack Donald Trump.

And what makes you absolutely so certain that there is no chance at all that he himself will make the nomination? Is it because his position put him broadly on the kind of liberal wing of today's Republican Party, or is it because in office as governor, he was plagued, really, by quite a few scandals? In one case, accused of intentionally causing traffic on the main bridge to New York in retaliation. A spat, really with the local mayor who hadn't backed him. And also in this famous case, of being accused of intentionally causing traffic on the main bridge to New York in a local spat with a mayor who hadn't backed him. And Chris Christie himself was not and never indicted in connection with that case, and always denied ever knowing about it. And then, in this other case, where he and his family were pictured sitting on a beach in New Jersey at a time when all the beaches were closed to the public.

Well, there is no liberal wing of the Republican Party anymore, but he's a no hoper because he's out of step with the Republican base in this particular case, unfortunately, the scandals hurt him. I mean, he left office in New Jersey with very, very low approval ratings, he's still polling at less than I think 1 nationally. But those scandals and embarrassments pale against Donald Trump's attempt to overthrow the government of the United States. And to incite a mob to attack the Congress in order to prevent his successor from being sworn in.

So this is interesting. He's no fool, you know, he knows politics. He'll know what you've just said. Which is, he is, as you put it, a no hoper. In which case, why is he running?

Now, this is a fascinating question. Because he, of course, would deny that he is just in the race to blow himself up to be the assassin, but he is not. He's not a dumb man, he's a very savvy operator. I think that he is in this to take out Donald Trump.

You see everybody. I want the people at home to think about this. That's what Washington D.C. does. The drive-by shot at the beginning, with incorrect and incomplete information, and then the memorized 25-second speech. That is exactly what his advisers gave him.

So the question is, will he when he gets on the debate stage? And by the way, he will never be on a debate stage with Donald Trump. Donald Trump will never get on a debate stage with Chris Christie.

Because he'll be too frightened to do it.

Well, exactly, he's not going to debate, probably at all. But will Chris Christie then turn on one of the other candidates who is clogging up the lane? Will he attack Rhonda Sanders? will he attack Glenn Young?

The person I am talking about, who is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault, and who always finds someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong, but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right.

It's Donald Trump saying things that no other Republican official has been willing to say out loud. They may say it in private, but Chris Christie is saying all of that quiet stuff very loudly.

Yeah, I mean, even going after family members, which is normally a bit taboo. But he attacked Jared Kushner and Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka, saying The grift from this family is breathtaking. So this shows you he is not going to pull any punches. He told one TV interviewer this week that he was going to make any promise, any oath, any vow he had to make. In order to get onto that debate stage, which you've been mentioning, there is now a date set for that August 23rd, the first TV debate among Republican candidates in Milwaukee and Wisconsin.

I don't know well, given the numbers right now. He's going to get a lot of free media attention over the next few weeks because he is doing something that nobody else is doing. I think he won't have a problem getting the donors. Will he be able to move above that threshold in the polls? we don't know.

No, I wonder, though, if I was in Ron DeSantis HQ. I might be wanting to slip a few million dollars to Chris Christie. Because him being there, taking shots at Donald Trump, weakening the frontrunner, maybe that helps the guy who's currently in second place.

Well, that's true. And, of course, Ron DeSantis also has to think what happens if Chris Christie looks around, doesn't see Donald Trump and figures I'm going to go after you? Because Ron DESantis is a target-rich environment. Especially for somebody like Chris Christie, who has also been the governor of a major state. So we don't know how this is going to play out. Who actually benefits from this? But what I said yesterday was, and going back to your question about who is Chris Christie? Chris Christie is a deeply flawed but extraordinarily talented political figure.

Yeah, and he can do retail politics quite well. One day I'll tell you about, Am I going to see Bruce Springsteen in New Jersey? And there in the Bleachers, dancing away to Bruce Springsteen was New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. And he's able to pull that off in a way that's very forced for Ron DeSantis.

The rationale behind Mike Pence's candidacy continues to be a mystery to me. I think that, in many ways, Mike Pence is one of those Republicans that is in denial about how much the Republican Party has changed. I think that he is, you know, he is. And people like Paul Ryan are living in a pre-Trump era where they imagine that the Republican Party is the way it was back in 2015. Where they can run as a reaganite. And so you have Mike Pence who's doing something very unusual, which is to be a vice president running against the man who actually put him into office. But I think we saw the problem with Mike Pence yesterday.

And in a way, Pence is in the majority in that Republican field. As you've been saying, most of them just don't dare go fully full-bloodedly after Donald Trump. You can see why that's particularly difficult for Mike Pence because he was loyal to him for all about that. You know, the 11th hour and the 59th minute, but just, I mean, stepping back from, specifically from Pence and the whole field. Why are they all so frightened of being direct and doing a Chris Christie and going directly after the guy's frontrunner? Normally, in politics, you just aim your fire at the guy who's in front because that's the way you get to be in front.

Well, you know, part of it is the failure of collective action. If they all were to do it, they would have some courage, but the cowardice has really become ingrained in the party. It's kind of almost the muscle memory, and I think what they say to one another is, well, we could do this, but we'll end up like Liz Cheney, or we'll end up like Adam Kinzinger.

We should just jump in there and explain that you're referring there to these reports that Donald Trump is about to be indicted yet again. Different case, this one, this is about his holding onto, his hoarding of classified records. And people remember that FBI raid on the Florida resort of Mar-a-lago. This is, it's said to be imminent that Donald Trump be indicted in that case.

And it will probably be indictments for obstruction, we don't know whether they will actually use the espionage law. So, you know again, that that takes us into absolutely uncharted territory in American politics. And at the same time, there is this new willingness on the part of some figures to begin to take some tentative shots. Going back to Mike Pence, though, you talked about how he's in line with the majority of Republicans.

It does seem as if Mike Pence has decided that his strategy is to aim for a very early win in one state in particular, namely Iowa. And Iowa, of course, has a long track record of picking candidates who look a lot like him. Christian evangelicals, perhaps most famously in 1988, when Iowa Republicans went for the televangelist. The Reverend Pat Robertson, who won in the state in that year and whose death actually was announced on Thursday, age 93. But Iowa did also hand victory to Senator, then Senator Rick Santorum, also to Ted Cruz. It does tend to back evangelicals like Mike Pence.

Well, that's exactly the strategy, and I think that is what he is thinking. And evangelical voters make up a huge proportion of the Republican electorate. As you just as you walk through, and this is, this is Mike Pence's base, this is why he was put on the ticket.

Before we leave these new entrants, there is one other, another governor, hoping to make it to the White House. Doug Burgum of North Dakota Again, I hear a revealing giggle from you. But in an opinion piece for the Washington Post, the headline asked Doug who? So tell us Charlie Sykes Doug who?

I have no idea. I mean, I was glad that you said that he was the governor of North Dakota, because I probably couldn't have told you whether it was North Dakota or South Dakota. I mean, there are obscure candidates out there, there are no hope candidates out there, and then there is this guy.

Funnily enough, before any of these candidates entered the race, one person who some had thought would enter. Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire announced that he would not do that. With a kind of shot across the bowels of the other candidates in the field, saying the stakes are too high to have a field this crowded. He was saying, Look, I'm leading by example, I'm dropping out and effectively saying to the others with as little support as he had time to drop out. I mean, based on what you told me earlier, I think you think he's right. But do you think, to what extent do you think anybody is going to heed that warning?

Well, this is also a flashback to 2015, where Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who had been briefly a front runner and then faded, was the first candidate to drop out of the race. Against Donald Trump, but he made the exact same appeal, he said It is time to coalesce against the front runner. You know, I am dropping out. Other people should as well.

Charlie We always like to ask our guests on the podcast a what else? question something completely different. This week, Tucker Carlson made his post Fox News debut with a show on Twitter, taking very direct aim in really controversial language against, for example, Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. We can talk about that, but overall, what's your impression of this new post? Fox Tucker Carlson? And to what extent do you think he remains a big power in Republican politics?

Well, he remains a power in Republican politics, but it's hard not to feel that he has been diminished by all of this. He goes on Twitter with this very low production value screed about Volodymyr Zelensky. That doesn't mean that he does not have a constituency, but it's a far cry from the platform that he had on Fox News. And I thought it was extraordinary that he chose, for his debut on Twitter, to launch this viciously anti-semitic attack against the Jewish Ukrainian president. I mean, you know, talked about, you know, sweaty and rat like and a persecutor of Christians and then advancing various conspiracy theories.

Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark, Thanks so much for talking to me on Politics Weekly America.

It's been fun, thank you so much.

And that is all from me for this week. The producer is Daniel Stevens. the executive producer is Maz Ebtehaj. I'm Jonathan Friedland. Thanks as always for listening.

This is The Guardian.