Chris Christie's Last Stand (Live from San Diego!)

The mayor of San Diego, Todd Gloria, is here.

We are so happy to have Sam Sanders with us, co-host of the excellent podcast, Vibe Check.

So we had another Republican primary debate this week.

While we're all hoping it would be the last, they just announced today there will be three

more in January.

And after watching Wednesday night's debate in Alabama between Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley,

Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, it's hard to see why.

It was on the CW on my television.

They were airing it there.

That still exists.

So despite promises from the moderators that the debate would focus on Trump, the only

person who took that seriously was last place candidate Chris Christie.

Let's listen.

We're 17 minutes into this debate, and except for your little speech in the beginning, we've

had these three acting as if the race is between the four of us.

The fifth guy, who doesn't have the guts to show up and stand here, he's the one who,

as you just put it, is way ahead in the polls.

And yet I've got these three guys who are all seemingly to compete with, you know, Voldemort.

The fact is that when you go and you say the truth about somebody who is a dictator, a

bully, who has taken shots at everybody, whether they've given them great service or not over

time, who dares to disagree with him, then I understand why the thieves three are timid

to say anything about it.

Maybe it's because they have future aspirations.

Maybe those future aspirations are now, or maybe they're four years from now.

Dan, Christie suggested that, as you heard there, that maybe the reason his opponents

aren't taking on Trump directly is because they have future aspirations, which is a take

directly from the message box.

Questions, did you know he was such a fan?

And what do you think Christie was trying to do last night?

you give me some advice?

And I said, I need you to do two things.

One, do not fall for him.

Do not bro out.

Number two, grab his phone and subscribe to the message box.

I just want to say, Dan, I mean, look, if you tell someone don't fall in love with that

guy, he's a bad boy.

It's going to happen every goddamn time.

benefit of the doubt.

Go, go, go.

I think, no, I think, no, I think this dude has shown that he will do whatever he needs

to do to stay around.

Do not attack Chris Christie on this stage with you people.

You're talking about my friend.

I'll tell you that.

early debates, talked so much shit about Donald Trump.

And then Trump gets in office and Lindsey Graham is just up that man's ass for four

years.

I don't trust these guys.

I don't think you should trust him.

Very clear.

The RNC basically had to rig the polling to get him on that stage because he came.

He was hours away from not making it, and they had to include a poll they would otherwise

not have included.

I think because News Nation was desperate for any sort of entertainment at their one

moment in the sun.

And so this was the moment to do it.

We loved it.

You guys loved it, as evidenced by your applause.

is a Democrat.

So let me put that in perspective.

Chris Christie's approval rating among Republican primary voters in the most recent Monmouth

University poll is 12 percent.

Do you know what Barack Obama's approval rating with Republicans was on the last day he was

president?

14 percent.

I'm glad he said it.

It's good for the historical record book that he said it has zero impact in the Republican

primary.

There was a poll out after the debate.

They did a pre-debate poll of Republican voters who watched the debate and a post-debate poll.

And the one candidate, when they asked, would you be considering this candidate, the one

candidate who gained the most out of anyone in the debate was Chris Christie.

And then Dan said, okay, well, what percentage?

And they said he went from 21 percent to 29 percent.

Huge.

That's an eight-point bump.

Donald Trump's at 62.

So in terms of polls, endorsements, fundraising, Nikki Haley was the candidate with the most

momentum heading into the debate, which is why she was the target of so many attacks

from DeSantis and Vivek.

Here's some of that.

any time the media comes after her.

Nikki, you were bankrupt when you left the U.N.

After you left the U.N., you became a military contractor.

You actually started joining service on the board of Boeing, whose back you scratched

for a very long time, and then gave foreign multinational speeches like Hillary Clinton

is.

And now you're a multimillionaire.

That math does not add up.

Nikki is corrupt.

This is a woman who will send your kids to die so she can buy a bigger house.

Love all the attention, fellas.

Thank you for that.

First of all, he's mad because those Wall Street donors used to support him.

And now they support me.

ear, you have arms, go.

they wear the same heels.

They wear the same heels.

And I've never forgotten that.

Because it's probably the most she's taken in any debate.

And do you think any of the attacks from Vivek or DeSantis will stick?

I think only the base was watching to even think about having their minds changed.

And I think of all of the men clamoring to take Nikki down a notch, it just made her

seem like the strongest person in the room.

And now I just think of it as Nikki and the boys.

It's Nikki and the boys.

And Nikki seems at least crazy.

Nikki seems at least crazy.

And so I think she won that debate.

I think she's got some good money behind her now, but I also think that none of them should

get their hopes up.

Who listens to The Daily this morning?

Yeah.

Yeah, you did.

Second half, they introduce this idea of a factional candidate.

Who listens to that?

I listened to it.

So it's this idea...

You get an A. You get an A+.

They say, fuck The Daily, but they listen to the Crooked podcast, What a Day.

Yes.

Listen to both like I do.

That's right.

candidate.

She's surging right now, but she'll only be really popular with a faction of the GOP electorate.

And she'll never get past that faction.

And once you see her as that, you know that the only way she makes it is if something

really bad happens to Trump and he's out of there.

Otherwise, she ends up like all the other factional candidates in recent history.

Kasich, factional candidate.

McCain, factional candidate.

Jesse Jackson, factional candidate.

Bernie Sanders, factional candidate.

And so I think what Nikki Haley has to do, knowing that, is triangulate in a way that

Trump does not have to.

Because she knows there's a good chance that she'll never be nominee.

So she needs to appeal enough to the right groups of people to be able to land somewhere

else after this.

But I don't know.

I think she's surging right now.

But unless Trump is taken away in handcuffs, he's the nominee, right?

Still.

I know that Dan here disagrees because he's on the Haley train, and he thinks she's going

all the way.

over Trump?

I have been sitting here for weeks now, listening to people talk about surging Nikki Haley

and how she's the alternative to Trump.

That is mathematical idiocy.

Yep.

And it drives me insane.

The press, they really had in their budget lines a competitive Republican primary.

They're not getting that.

I think a lot of people would like to live in a country where Nikki Haley, for as bad

as she is, could win the Republican nomination, not Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.

That's not the country we live in.

Let's put some numbers to this, okay?

In a recent NBC poll, they asked voters who their first and second choice was.

Donald Trump is the first or second choice of 71% of voters.

Ron DeSantis, who we all make fun of as a ridiculous, awkward nerd.

Goober.

Goober.

Goober.

Perfect word.

54%.

Nikki Haley, 28%.

Consider her as first or second choice.

The Nikki Haley's approval rating has gone down as she has, quote unquote, surged because

more Republican pro-Trump voters have soured on her.

Her net approval rating right now, so that your approval rating minus your disapproval

rating is 12 points.

Donald Trump's, 58.

Ron DeSantis's, 43.

Right?

It is a fiction in creation.

She is exactly, as Sam said, a factional candidate who appeals to the 38% of Republicans who

say they oppose the MAGA movement.

You cannot get there in a race like this because eventually, this is why all these factional

candidates lose.

Eventually, it becomes a two-person race and the factional candidate can't get to 50%.

I feel better now.

Thank you for allowing me to do that.

A little bit of feedback was hard to hear.

That, too.

That, too.

that mostly doesn't exist anymore.

It's a pre-2016 Republican party.

It's the Republican party that was more internationalist, less isolationist, more in favor of immigration,

more focused on free markets and the debt.

She talks about this every debate.

She's very obsessed with the debt and the deficit and just all kinds of stuff that Republicans

used to care about before Donald Trump came along.

She is, I think, now the natural place for either anti-Trump Republicans or Republicans

who still believe in the party that was pre-Trump and that's just a third of the Republican

electorate.

It just hasn't budged.

treated like, oh, wow, charisma, talent.

She does fine during this debate.

There was a moment that I thought was telling.

I think Chris Christie is the best politician up there.

He's just offering, I do believe that, sorry, I deal with it, he's my best friend, but he's

just offering something they don't want.

If he was the best politician, we wouldn't know about Richard.

He's joining the campaign.

in to defend Nikki Haley and it was kind of strange.

Nikki Haley just took the compliment, but I think a stronger person, she's a better

politician than Rhonda Santas, but the idea that she just stood there and let Chris Christie

defend her as opposed to jumping in-

I found it quite patronizing.

here likes except for the Pod Save America audience.

Also, Chris Christie, you defending me is hurting me with the voters I actually need

so please shut the fuck up.

No.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm arguing with the most annoying person any of us has ever

met.

be the only woman on that stage when the men are going after you like that, you're in a

hard bind.

You're in a hard bind, so I can totally understand her not responding to Chris Christie patronizing

her.

I can totally understand any response she gives because they were bullying her because

she's a woman.

And I can say that and still not like her, but they were bullying her because she's a

woman and that was just, they're still doing that?

They're still doing that?

from?

Who sits there and thinks like, oh yeah, everyone loves the annoying dickhead who gives geography

pop quizzes at debates.

Do you think being president is like, sir, where should we land the plane?

He's like, repeat something you memorized back in the day, like a far-flung country.

Bratislava.

Like, what are you talking about?

How do you think this is a good attack?

out the paperwork incorrectly.

Wow.

Chris Christie for being too afraid to take on Trump.

Let's listen to that exchange.

The question was very direct.

Is he fit to be president or isn't he?

The rest of the speech is interesting, but completely non-responsive.

And if we were in a courtroom, they'd strike the answer and say, Governor DeSantis, you're

a smart man.

No, they wouldn't.

No, they wouldn't.

They would strike the answer because you're not answering it.

Is he fit?

You have your thing.

Is he fit or isn't he?

No, I don't have my thing.

He's the thing.

Governor DeSantis, let him.

I think we have an opportunity.

I just want to say.

We're fucked.

Oh my God.

Horrible.

Now I saw it for the first time.

Wait.

laying into him, he decides to jump in on, no, no, no, the court reporter wouldn't strike

it from the record.

Actually, actually.

It was admissible.

Tommy, to the extent that this debate mattered at all, which I would posit it did not.

It was about whether DeSantis or Haley probably helped themselves more since they are the

ones battling it out for second place right now.

Who do you think did better?

Or do you think either candidate actually helped themselves in this debate?

as you can tell, right?

I'm more inclined to think Chris Christie did well.

Ron DeSantis, for me, everything he says is delivered in the tone of a child who thinks

he bargained 30 more minutes of TV time.

You know what I mean?

And he's like, no, I did it.

You said I could watch SummerSlam.

Dude, what are we talking about here?

And so it's hard for me to get past that and how annoying he is.

I do think he looked weak there, and Christie got him, and he wasn't answering, and he made

him look kind of ridiculous, like he was ducking the question.

For Nikki Haley, I mean, it is very, very hard in debates when everyone is coming after you.

I thought she was very strong in the front and then faded a little by the end because

she was just getting hammered from every side.

I mean, when this little dweeb holds up like Nikki equals corrupt, what do you do with that?

Also, you know, her husband is in the military.

He's deployed overseas.

And Vivek Ramaswamy said to her, she'll send your sons overseas so she can buy a bigger house.

Like the meanest things you could possibly say to someone, Vivek Ramaswamy was saying to her.

So I think Vivek, you know, look, he had a moment before that first debate.

I think his personality has turned off everyone who's seen him speak.

I think Haley did well, but took a lot of incoming, and it's not just about, you know,

the three or four million people who watched the debate that night.

It's about how those attacks get replayed on TV shows the next day, on social media,

what gets picked up in ads, what messages get carried forward.

And I think, like, she took some tough shots that she's going to have to answer about,

you know, some of the corruption allegations that he made.

DeSantis might have done better just by virtue of, like, getting less incoming and kind of

being out of the fray for more time, but it's tough to tell.

I actually know what Ron DeSantis was doing in that debate.

I know what Chris Christie was doing in that debate.

I know Nikki Haley pushed back against a bunch of attacks,

but she didn't make as clean an argument for candidacy as Ron DeSantis did,

as much as Ron DeSantis has to do it using Ron DeSantis' voice.

He was like, yes, I would send special forces into Gaza to rescue hostages.

Yes, I would go to war with China over Taiwan.

Like, DeSantis ducked that question, and Christie's like,

no, let me tell you about all the places I'm going to fucking attack.

because I trust y'all's judgment and opinions.

I kept thinking, watching this debate,

all right, Trump's not here,

because he doesn't need to talk to anyone but his base,

and he can talk to them whenever he wants,

and they look for his words,

but all these candidates here are trying in some way

to talk to multiple audiences,

whether it be donors or maybe moderate swing voters or whoever,

but, like, if these candidates on that stage last night

know that they'll never be president,

who were they really talking to last night,

and what do they really want,

knowing the endgame is not going to be the White House for them?

they have convinced themselves,

because I think if you run for president,

if you got the staff, you got the donors,

you go through the whole thing,

you're living your life on the road,

you know, you have convinced yourself that there is a path,

maybe an unlikely path, but, like, things happen.

Trump ends up in jail.

Trump drops dead, right?

Like, this is the kind of thing.

I'm going to tell you right now,

if something happens to Donald Trump,

then maybe I could go to this state and this state

and I could get this constituency

and I could do this and that and the other thing.

Like, I think that's in their mind,

and then they're thinking,

to Dan's point that he's made,

like, and if that fails,

then maybe I'm set up for 2028, right?

Ron DeSantis, if Donald Trump were to go to prison tomorrow,

Ron DeSantis would be the Republican nominee

and it wouldn't be close.

He's by far the second choice of most Trump voters.

Shut up.

By far. It's not even close.

Not little Ron.

Yeah. We don't like him.

He's weird. He's awkward.

He's an asshole to just enough of the right people

for Republicans to be their nominee.

That is who it is.

Nikki Haley is positioning herself

for a post-Trump Republican party.

And the problem for her is

she started this race as a non-Trump.

But she started gaining support

as the candidate of the anti-Trump faction.

So that has made her less popular

and less viable of a leader

in the Republican Party in a 2028 race.

Vivek Ramaswamy is talking to Trump directly.

He's an audience of one.

But I would not be surprised to find out

that Trump's campaign is encouraging him

to stay in the race,

encouraging him to do what he's doing

to just be a chaos agent there

and defend Trump on stage.

Wow.

Because at the beginning of that clip we showed,

Ramaswamy is trying to get in there

to defend DeSantis for not saying

Trump is unfit and attack Chris Christie.

And Chris Christie...

who can provide a sixth chair up here.

Seriously, he's talking to the person

who offers contributor contracts

at MSNBC.