Chris Christie Is Coming for the Presidency

foreign [Music] scaramucci and welcome to open book where I talk with some of the most interesting and Brilliant Minds in our world today and joining us now on open book is Governor Chris Christie the former Governor of New Jersey and a 2024 GOP Presidential candidate he's also the author of Republican rescue saving the party from truth deniers conspiracy theorists and the dangerous policies of Joe Biden so first of all Governor friends a long time it's great to have you on the show congratulations on everything so far um I'm gonna go right to the decision to running for president you said that your wife Mary Pat who the scaramucci family is very fond of uh had sort of helped you make that decision take us through that my wife would castrate me I just speak publicly my wife is a castration policy if I run for public office and so that's obviously not a non-starter for me but go ahead and take us through that well you know it really started the conversation started in Earnest Anthony you know probably last fall as the uh as the field started to assemble a little bit and we kind of were watching what they were up to and how they were speaking and particularly how they were dealing with the issue of uh Donald Trump running again for president and as we moved into the winter um Mary pack continued to say to me I don't think any of these people are going to have either the guts or the ability to take him on directly and he needs to be taken on and you're the guy who can do it um and in the beginning I'll tell you because she was she was certainly less enthusiastic um in 2016 about me running um and and this time you know she just kept pushing and saying to me you know you can't allow him to get away with saying the things and doing the things that he's doing um it's bad for the party it's bad for the country you're the one who can prosecute the case against him and so she was a big part Anthony of the decision to finally run I think she she's right and I think the early part of the race has proven she was right no one else is doing this but we are and we're doing it aggressively um you you it's a big deal though Chris I mean let's just talk very openly you've got uh beautiful kids I've met your children parents uh you know it's a big deal okay so go ahead take a little deeper take me a little deeper if you don't mind because right now you're doing you're doing great you got speaking engagements and television punditry and board seats and uh you can write books and you are a very popular figure uh in especially in the north your popular National figure there's no question you could I mean you know you could win the presidency knock on wood I would love to see you as president obviously I'm one of your supporters but it's a very big deal to go back from being a private citizen with a very high quality of life to undergo what you're about to do so give us more color please yeah look it it's not an easy decision as you just laid out for a bunch of reasons one the last five years out of public office have been really very good to me and I've gotten to stay in the public discussion through the stuff I've done on ABC News and some public speeches paid public speeches I've been able to give over the course of time um Mary Pat and I spent a lot more time at the Jersey Shore together with our family over the Summers which has been great um really enjoyable to us and yeah I've started my own business and and we've been successful so you know all those things are things that say why would you ever want to give most of that up um in order to pursue the presidency again and and it's not easy decision and my kids were of mixed feelings about it I like their mother my daughters were not very enthusiastic about the idea of doing it again um they they're concerned about me they're concerned about you know how the stress and the pressure will affect me um and being back in the public Limelight my sons were a little more enthusiastic than my daughters but still I think they would have been just as happy if I didn't do it but in the end Anthony you know if it's in you to believe that the country matters and the things that I've seen happen to our country under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are just things that I couldn't sit by and leave to others to try to fix and when I looked at the other candidates if I had a great degree of confidence in any of the other ones that they would do it aggressively in the right way both in terms of campaigning for president and ultimately being president I I probably wouldn't have done it but I don't have that confidence and so it's time for me to to you know put up her shut up and so we're at put up time okay it was fair enough you you I I watched one of your interviews this morning you said that you and I laughed actually you said you were from New Jersey so you're used to people saying nasty things about you in public okay I I enjoyed that because I'm from Long Island I've been run over by a steamroller as you know three or four times and for whatever reason it doesn't bother me so what is it about the water in New Jersey or a place like Long Island uh that gives us a little bit of that fight and a little bit of that bite Chris we're tough you know and we grew up with tough people and we were raised in in our case with you and I Anthony we were raised by tough parents who weren't given anything in their lives they had to work for everything they got and were can absolutely intent on us having a better life than they did and guess what they succeeded um and so you know when you have that kind of of background plus you know I I have a sicilian mother um who you know was edgy and tough uh and didn't take any garbage from anybody and that was the example I watched growing up and so as I got into public life the interesting thing was she didn't live for very long in my public life only for about two years of my time as U.S attorney but even then if there's anything in the paper that was somewhat negative this really tough woman would go completely berserk um and and want to write letters to the editor and all the rest of this which I had to throw my body in front of to stop her uh so you know it's hard for families to watch this stuff but I think for me you know and for you it's it's part of who we are and I take great pride in the fact that I can take a punch and get up I don't like taking a punch I don't want a kid anybody um nobody likes it but I like the fact that I could take the punch and get back up and start throwing punches of my own and I've had that a lot of times in my career and I know I'm gonna have that some more over the course of the next 18 months um between now and election day 2024 so let's get to it so so Chris we we we're in the same camp obviously and again I uh uh I've I've given you money and I'm I'm psyched to give you more money I'm psyched to raise your money and I want to help you uh we've both known Trump for a long time I think you said you've known for 22 years I met him personally 17 years ago obviously we both knew about him before we met him because he's been a fixture in our lives for many decades but tell tell me about how this shapes up how do you think when you Workshop in your mind a campaign for the presidency going up against Donald Trump um does he survive does he survive all these indictments um does he drop out does he stay in the race his family is decidedly not with him this time of the Melania is tepidly with him we both saw the Special Report interview last night where I sort of felt left out Chris he attacked everybody but me I felt like I was left now but maybe because I was only there for 11 days I didn't qualify for the uh the death and destruction uh rhetoric how does it shape out how do you see this look he's the front runner Anthony and and he's a front runner by you know double digits big double digits 20 30 points um and so I don't understand how you can game this out any other way but having to take him on directly and go after him uh there's one lane it seems to meet the Republican nomination for president he's at the front of that lane so to do it you have to go through him my instinct tells me knowing him all these years that he does not drop out that no matter what happens he would not be able to survive the idea of dropping out of this race voluntarily I think he's going to have to be defeated at the polls um in the Republican primaries I do think that if he loses one or two he then will drop out um he can't take losing as you know that's the whole basis of this denying that the 2020 election actually happened the way it did because he just can't bear the idea to be called a loser but he is a loser he lost in 2018 when you know uh the House Representatives when he was the leader of the party he lost the White House in the senate in 2020 he lost two more Governor seats in 2022 and another senate seat and so here we are um as a loser party now for the last six years uh under his leadership so I think he wants to try to reverse that but if he gets the sense early on in the primary season let's say Anthony he were to lose Iowa and New Hampshire I think he gets out because I think he can't bear the idea of the beating that would come after that so I think he'd say something like the country doesn't deserve me the elections were rigged I don't need this and I'm going back to Mar-A-Lago um but unless he gets defeated at the polls I don't think he ever drops out voluntarily no matter how many cases are brought against him um okay so let's talk about beating him then so now you you know and we both know the Republican parties primaries are front loaded it's a winner take all primary system um you've got about six weeks really to beat him obviously you have this and and and uh you know beginning of the year but once you get into 2024 January you know you've got about six or seven weeks so I have the my thinking right is that a correct analysis or it is it is going to matter yep yep so how do we do it but the way we do it is we start as we have right now the last two weeks of the campaign our first two weeks um we've been going right at them and going at them strong and you get a lot of attention when you do that and that's what you need the American people are not focusing on the presidential race right now as you know guys like you and I are focusing on it but the American people aren't focusing on it and so it's going to take enormous amount of repetition over the next six months to get into their psyche and once we get past Christmas then everybody will be paying attention to it and that's when you have to lay it on even harder but hopefully you've laid the foundation in these six months and then in these last six weeks I think you know we don't know what's going to happen with this cases Etc so you can't talk about exactly every issue you're going to bring up but you have to talk about how he was a failure as a president how he failed on the promises that he gave to us so whether it was to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it or repeal and replace Obamacare balance the budget in four years these are all things that he said he was going to do fix the immigration system he didn't do any of it and a lot of Republicans know that our agenda's Not Safe in His Hands because he doesn't really care about an agenda what he cares about his power for himself um and retribution now against those who he thinks have done him wrong um that doesn't seem to be the great basis for a presidency and that's the case we'll be making so I think that's the way to do it um and as you know he'll give us like he did last night on the Brett Bear interview that you referenced he'll give us plenty of opportunities for additional points to make every time he opens his mouth you know your uh uh very well liked in the blue collar Community you know my my father-in-law who unfortunately is no longer with us was a huge fan of yours president Trump is also well liked in that community and you identified something he identified something there's a forgotten group of people Governor Christie where they were once uh blue collar and economically aspirational but now they're blue collar and they feel economically desperational um in your case however though I see you as somebody that can come up with policies to help them president Trump has been an avatar for their anger certainly but he never came up with any policies to help them so so explain to us what differentiates you and explain to us what you would do in your first 100 days in office to help these people well a few things you know first off Anthony I think you're right that he's tied into their anger and that's and and that gives them some comfort but it doesn't give them any relief um in the end we need to give them the kind of relief that they need so what do you do first off you got to get inflation under control it is the biggest invisible tax that these folks pay every time they go to a store and the way to do that in my view is to bring government spending down so in the first hundred days you have to propose a budget that is going to bring significantly under control on the federal budget and that's going to be a fight with the Congress depending upon who controls the Congress but it's a fight that you have to have because you have to send a signal to the markets something that you know better than I that this inflationary period is going to go away as that goes away rates go down more investment in business more investment in job creation will help the middle class in this country second I think that parents are incredibly frustrated about the educational system in our country not only the college system but to 12 system so one of the things I want to do very early on is propose a federal tax credit um for school choice so that parents can send their kids to a a parochial school a private school um if they want to and and not have to worry about whether um they have the wherewithal to afford it you and I have been fortunate enough that we can make those decisions for our kids to send them to the very best place with a public private or parochial a lot of parents in this country don't have it we need to give them that relief so they can feel like again like our parents felt that they were giving us an opportunity for a greater life and they knew education was the way to do that you wouldn't want you went to one of the finest educational institutions higher education in the country um and and so that opportunity for parents like yours to see their their son um go to an Ivy League school and be able to build a career off that it takes away a lot of that anger Anthony that you're talking about um third I'd say that we need to fix the immigration system in the country people need to know the immigration system works and it's fair that the people very great value to this country are being led in based upon their Merit and that the border and in the south is closed for two reasons one because it's unfair to everyone who's waiting um in an illegal way to come in but secondly and more importantly um the amount of fentanyl that's coming in over the southern border Anthony is is obscene manufactured in China sent to the cartels in Mexico and then brought up to this country 110 000 overdose deaths last year um it's now the leading cause of death in young men between 18 and 34 in this country um I'd send the national guard down there in the first hundred days to assist our border patrol officers to interdict um that Fentanyl and to try to prevent as much of it as we can from coming into the country and I'd couple with that a much more aggressive program um Anthony on treatment and drug treatment in our country so that people who need the treatment can get it we're not going to solve this problem by jailing drug addicts um drug dealers definitely should go to jail the ones who are profiting off of it but the addicts need to get treated it's a disease just like heart disease or cancer or diabetes they need to be treated and can be treated and we need to save lives and so those are examples of things I would try to get rolling in the first hundred days uh to accomplish on behalf of the country well it did you know listen it's obviously it's a great plan it's great policies that I believe in Chris I I want to ask you about the other side though because um you know I'll say this rhetorically I didn't think we were going to grow up you and I are roughly the same age um didn't think we were going to grow up in a society that was this polarized I sort of remember more committee and get a longness if you will in the uh body politic when we were growing up maybe that's not the case but it certainly seemed like that correct me if I'm wrong because you you're more of a student of this than that but how do you get your policies done in an environment like this where people are at each other's throats in Washington or on the airwaves on cable in the streets on social media how do we do it Chris well that's one of the things I think Anthony that differentiates me from the other candidates you know our other candidates are basically Red State candidates who have operated either as Governors or as uh Senators um in states that are dominated by the Republican party and so they had an easy time for the most part getting their policies through everybody agreed that's not the atmosphere in Washington as you know and was not the atmosphere for eight years when I was in Trenton in the state capitol in New Jersey where I had a democratic legislature for all eight years so I had to learn how to use the bully pulpit how to use public and pro private persuasion um to bring people along to do things like we did in New Jersey and pension uh uh reform against the public sector Union's opposition um health benefit reform again against the the public sector Union opposition firing the Camden Police Department because they were wholly ineffective bringing in a new police force and training them in a new way which now has led to a 75 drop in the murder rate in the city of Camden um these are the kind of things that we were able to accomplish in a bipartisan way and so I think one you have somebody who knows how to do that knows how to work with the other side to accomplish things secondly I think it also is about the rhetoric you use you know you know me I'm tough I will fight and I'll throw a punch um whenever I need to but we need to get back in Washington DC to the idea that we're all set there for a reason that reason it was accomplished something that makes the country better for the people who live here and you know that's the kind of Desire I would bring to the job is to every day look for ways that we could work together I won't abandon my principles but what I will do is not call someone who agrees with me eighty percent of the time my 20 enemy uh they'd be my 80 friend and that's the way you have to look at it and that's the way I'd go about it and I hope that by getting rid of some of this trump-induced chaos and vitriol and this you know constantly looking back and whining and moaning and complaining about the way he was mistreated that'll bring everybody's anger down we'll still disagree Anthony but you remember I think what what you and I are thinking back on is times when you could sit at a dinner party or a cocktail party and disagree with people about politics but not have it end the evening now you have any of that kind of disagreement people are so on edge and so angry and feeling aggrieved that it can end the dinner party and the cocktail party when people just storm out and we'll talk to each other I think showing people the government can get something done will bring that temperature down so what I ask you the real leadership question okay I think about this often in my own life okay and I have my list um are there things that you could have handled differently or better and if so what were they oh a number of things um if if I had to do all over again um there's a there's a a law in New Jersey I think that allows retired police officers and firefighters and other other public sector workers to get paid at the end of their careers for their sick time unused sick time so I always thought the benefit of having paid sick time was if you got sick you'd still get paid but these men and women would Bank it and then get checks for a quarter of a million dollars 300 400 000 at the end of their careers on the taxpayer I went I railed against this as governor and I got a bill to my desk that would have capped those payments at fifteen thousand dollars and I wanted it to be zero and I vetoed the bill and I never got another bill back and I could have capped this thing at 15 instead today now nine years later um they're they're still getting these huge checks it was a mistake and what it taught me was a bigger lesson which is that you know if you can get two-thirds of a loaf you should take it and live to fight another day then you're only fighting between the difference between fifteen thousand and zero not between unlimited and zero um on the on the George Washington Bridge matter there's no doubt that the mistake I made there with some of the people that I picked to be over at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey um and I made I made bad judgments there uh and you know Personnel is policy and uh people there disappointed me uh and I learned a very important lesson in that which is that there is no insignificant job that you give to anybody uh when you're in a position like Governor or president and so I'd be much much um even more Discerning than I was before because of that experience and everything that it cost me and it cost the people of our state to have people go off on a on a fraternity prank at the George Washington Bridge um and and it wasted a lot of time and a lot of energy for everybody because of what they did but the last thing I'd say is that there were moments where um when I was younger in public I said some things that I probably shouldn't have said use some adjectives that I shouldn't have used um and you know it's part of who I am and my and my nature as you said before I'm very direct but I also think that as you get older you realize that there are other words you can use to be just as direct and just as blunt without being nearly as crass or insulting and I think I've changed in that over the last you know five to six years as well so there's some things that I would do differently um if I had a chance to do it all over again and maybe I will um with the presidency what what what do you wish you a little harder at say wow you know I had I had that in my fingertips I should have pushed harder look I think that if I had to do that all over again and pushed a little bit harder for Stuff I would have pushed even harder for reducing more tax rates in the state New Jersey is so difficult as you know from a tax perspective for the people who live there and I got a cap on property taxes we eliminated the estate tax we reduced the sales tax we did some good things but we never were able to get anything done on the income tax and I think I I wish I'd gone harder on the income tax than I did I tried it a number of times but I probably could have spent more political capital on that um if if I had thought even harder about it I think also I would have started on the drug treatment issue sooner Anthony I think in the beginning I had more of a prosecutor spent towards it and an enforcement bet but the longer I worked on that issue the more I understood that treatment was really important and we made great strides in the last three years of my Administration but I wish I would have spent eight years in that regard we would have made even more progress and probably saved more lives you know I appreciate you answering these questions with such Candor because I do believe I know you believe this as well that good leadership requires that level of self-accountability a lot of times you hear somebody say I've never made any mistakes as Mr Trump want to do then you know you're in trouble because uh you know you'll enjoy this Governor I was with him when Mike Bloomberg called him and to congratulate him on the presidency obviously Mike was with Chris Christie I mean I mean with uh with uh Hillary Clinton and he says to uh he says to president Trump I just want you to go out and hire the best people and you know what Trump says to him I actually don't need to do that you know why Mike I'm the smartest person I'm the best person I don't need to do that and that was hurt by like five or six people that were in the room so it's not like I'm you know as Trump says he can say fake news all he wants but you know people heard it and saw it it is what it is all right we're down to the last few minutes here so uh I have five words I'm gonna read out the words Governor you give me your reaction of the word it could be a word it could be a sentence ready okay let's start with vice president Pence nice guy okay uh uh Governor Ron DeSantis don't know him okay uh Donald Trump lying narcissist okay and and also pass the sell-by date I think about the word Republic about the word Republican Chris always has made conservative to me Anthony and and anti-government unfortunately I think it's starting to change uh to be more like Democrats and I don't like it okay all right so you want to re reinstate sort of revitalize it um we've got uh the final words here from you make a little bit of a closing statement to our listeners uh why they should be supporting Governor Chris Christie for 2024. Anthony look I think that that our country under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump and now even more so into Joe Biden has become small -minded in the things that we that we discuss a small-minded in the things that we argue and bicker with each other about we divided ourselves up into even smaller smaller groups so we only stay with people that we agree with um we've divided our input of information into smaller and smaller things so we only hear things that we agree with and our goals for our country have become smaller and smaller um I want to be president United States because I want to do the big things again I want to revitalize an economy by lowering inflation and putting spending under control so that interest rates come down and that the American business man and woman can invest in creating jobs I I want to reform our our entitlement system so that seniors don't get a 24 cut in their benefits and not be able to pay their rent or buy food I want to make America a big player on the world stage again to make sure that freedom and liberty being fought for and supported all around the world when America is a Force for good in the world that crowds out communist China and totalitarian Russia and and the and the the Moon is in Iran I want this America to be once again one that's leading the entire world I want to make sure that every parent has educational choice in this country as we discussed to have a federal tax credit that allows them to pick where their children go to school how they learn and to be able to be a big part of supporting them in that learning and and lastly I want a country that once again understands what the truth is you know unfortunately um there are different versions of the truth um in the country we've lived in in the last eight years and that's not the kind of country that we've ever been um we've the truth matters and having leaders who will tell you the truth whether you like it or not are the kind of leaders that we need to have that's the kind of leader I've always been and I'll be even more of that type of leader if you give me a chance to be president of the United States to lead with the truth while I'm in your I'm in your boat I'm rowing with you I gotta give you my last I got to give you my last word I gave you four Pence to Santa's Trump Republican my last word is Christy truth power all right my friend listen um wish you a great success okay I gotta I gotta I'm gonna round up some dough for you brother all right absolutely I'm looking forward to that and uh I'm looking forward to you being on you and I being on The Campaign together it's gonna be good it's gonna be a lot of fun I'm looking forward to having a good time with you just remember something though because I have you on tape okay I don't yes I don't need to work in the White House more than one day okay I just have to I have to get a 12th day Chris okay you can you can have me in the photo area I don't care you can have me like loading toner in the copy machine okay I got a couple of really good ideas for you Anthony we'll talk about that but we can definitely get that 12th day no problem lots of love my man all right God bless thank you thanks for joining open book man you're the best thank you Anthony [Music]

Channel: Anthony Scaramucci

Views: 94,063

Keywords: Anthony Scaramucci, Scaramucci, the mooch, Mooch FM, SALT, SALT Talks, SkyBridge Capital, finance, investing, politics, Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, public policy, media, business, bitcoin, bitcoin news, crypto, news, news & politics, entertainment, #TheMooch, #MoochFM

Id: tRegTLVLfDE

Length: 29min 56sec (1796 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 30 2023