Six Questions Chris Christie Needs to Be Asked at This Week’s Debate

Once seen as a rising star in the Republican Party, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s fall from political grace has marked one of the most fascinating political stories of the last decade. Previously hailed as the “future of the GOP,” a conservative “fighter,” and a political “disruptor” who would lead the Republican Party to new and formidable heights, Christie has redefined himself among most Republican voters as the media’s favorite anti-Trump crusader who is more concerned with attacking the former president than promoting conservative causes and fighting for the will of Republican voters. That the media has already picked out its storyline for the first GOP debate this week is hardly surprising. While media operatives will of course be anxious to feature any anti-Trump declarations by, say, Mike Pence or other establishment favorites, they most of all want Christie—a former prosecutor and proficient debater—to give them anti-Trump soundbites in their post-debate coverage. Although there is little chance that debate questioners will have any interest in holding Christie accountable for his descent into leftism, other candidates on the stage with Christie will likely have incentive to hold his feet to the fire. Therefore, as Republicans gear up for the first GOP primary debate this week, here are six questions Christie should be forced to answer on the debate stage: 1. Millions of Republican and Independent voters believe the paramount issue in the 2024 campaign is the media’s status as the GOP’s main opposition party. As a former ABC News contributor, do you believe the network should apologize for perpetuating falsehoods like Russiagate and suppressing stories like the Hunter Biden scandal? On your next ABC appearance, will you ask them to apologize to the American people? Furthermore, you have also long been an advocate of transparency and advocacy in the federal government. With this in mind, did you really receive $400,000 form ABC annually, as the New York Times reported? Do you think ABC would have hired you if you did not regularly attack Donald Trump? And do you believe it was ethical to have that kind of relationship with an organization that actively attempts to turn every political story into an attack on conservatives and to help the Democratic Party? To conservative voters, it’s no secret that corporate media operatives play a massively outsized role in American politics. With every passing election cycle, it becomes clearer that   the media apparatus—not the Democrat Party—poses the most lethal threat to the American way of life. Without the left’s lackeys in the media, the universities, and the Deep State, it is difficult to see how Democrats would remain a powerful force in American elections. It is curious, therefore, that Chris Christie—a self-proclaimed conservative warrior—would join ABC News, one of the most dishonest news organizations in the country, as a contributor, where he raked in $400,000 a year prior to entering the 2024 presidential race. In recent years, ABC has propped up the left’s discredited Russiagate hoax, meticulously avoided reporting the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, and called for a “cleansing” of Donald Trump’s base of supporters, just to name a few instances of misinformation and political axe-grinding. But rather than pushing back against the network’s false narratives, Chris Christie has helped them. Given that the corporate media has become a massively antagonistic force in American politics, Christie should be asked whether he agrees with the media’s perpetuation of these narratives—and if he doesn’t, the debate questioners should ask him if he is willing to apologize to the American people for his complicity in the media’s political malfeasance. 2. What would you say to voters who consider you to be the favorite GOP candidate of the corrupt corporate media class? Given that opposition to the media is one of the most unifying issues among Republican primary voters, the corporate media’s embrace of Christie is likely alarming to conservatives. If Christie truly cared about advancing the will of his party’s voters and effectuating genuine conservative change, one might ask, why has he allowed himself to become a prop of the left-wing media? And what would he say to voters who see his candidacy as nothing more than an attempt to discredit Donald Trump and reinforce the left’s lies about conservatives? 3. Many conservatives are suspicious that indictments against Donald Trump have been rushed to get Biden scandals out of the headlines. Do you think the media should investigate these allegations of collusion? After prosecutors indicated on Friday, August 11 that a plea deal in the criminal investigation against Hunter Biden was unlikely, logic would dictate that the Hunter Biden scandal would emerge as a leading news story going into the week of August 14. And following reports that Attorney General Merrick Garland had appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation—even after Weiss agreed to a highly controversial plea deal that was eventually rejected by a federal judge—conservatives had hoped that Garland’s belly flop would elicit the news coverage it deserved. But instead, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis indicted Donald Trump the following Monday, a move that virtually eliminated the Hunter Biden scandal from the news. Of course, this pattern is far from new. In June, the day after Congress gained access to FBI documents showing that the Bidens took in millions of dollars in bribes, the Biden DOJ indicted Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. And when news broke that Joe Biden has been on more than 20 phone calls with Hunter and his business clients, the Biden DOJ once again indicted Trump in the January 6 case. Furthermore, in the case of Trump’s New York indictment, one of Alvin Bragg’s former leading prosecutors had previously represented Hillary Clinton as part of a firm led by Chuck Schumer’s brother. As Trump said in his primetime remarks following his first arraignment in April, Bragg’s “chief prosecutor, who represented the Democrats and crooked Hillary Clinton, a firm run by Chuck Schumer’s brother, Robert… he quit the firm in order to go to work in the D.A. office in order to get Trump. Can you imagine that? Hillary Clinton’s lawyer, Democrat lawyer, Democrat firm, ultimately he quit as chief prosecutor because Bragg didn’t think he had a case. Think of it, the same guy that brought this ridiculous thing today.” Given these patterns, conservatives are rightly suspicious of foul play. Therefore, Chris Christie should be asked whether he agrees with these accusations—and whether the media should investigate allegations of legal and political collusion to absolve the Bidens by way of persecuting Donald Trump. Christie should also be asked whether he approves the actions of Hillary Clinton and Democrat lawyers, who enlisted the FBI and the U.S. FISA Court to propagate false claims that Donald Trump colluded with Russia in his 2016 campaign. Following the Russiagate scandal, many conservatives have been resigned to the reality that Democrats are no longer interested in politics, and instead have come to rely on left-wing activist judges and district attorneys to do their political bidding for them. Christie, therefore, should be asked whether he agrees with this assessment of the left—and if so, why he has failed to do anything to hold them to account given his background as a federal prosecutor. 4. Based on your experience as a former federal prosecutor, if it is ultimately proven that a group of political activists and zealous lawyers were colluding with the federal government and state prosecutors to indict Donald Trump, would that constitute a violation of Section 1983? If so, would you support the prosecution of all guilty parties? U.S. Code Section 1983, states that any person who “subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.” If it is eventually established that political actors colluded with federal and state prosecutors to deny Donald Trump his civil rights as part of the left’s indictment crusade, Chris Christie should be asked whether he would support the prosecution of all responsible parties. Thus far, Christie has tended to side with the prosecutors targeting Donald Trump—including the Biden Department of Justice—signaling that he is more concerned with ousting Trump from the political arena than he is with opposing a corrupt ruling class that aggressively persecutes its political opponents. As such, Christie must go on the record to clarify his perspective on the indictment process, which could help voters to understand where his loyalty truly lies. 5. Do you think Christopher Wray has done a good job as FBI Director? Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI has raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, stormed the home of a Catholic pro-life activist, refused to detail any federal involvement in the events of January 6, and failed to publicly disclose incriminating information regarding Joe and Hunter Biden’s deep-seated corruption. Though Christie has remained broadly supportive of the Biden administration’s actions against Trump, he has failed to speak out against other specific instances of FBI corruption, such as the FBI’s raid on pro-life activist Mark Houck’s home. In fact, Wray was previously Christie’s attorney during his tenure as the governor of New Jersey, and Christie recently indicated that, if elected, he would retain Wray as FBI director in a hypothetical Christie administration. Of course, the corporate media has refused to confront him on this topic. At this week’s debate, the debate questioners should ask him directly whether he approves of Wray’s leadership of the FBI—and ask him why he has pledged to keep him as FBI Director if he becomes president. 6. Some Republicans are calling on conservative Attorneys General and prosecutors to look into criminal allegations that the Biden Justice Department refuses to honestly investigate, as well as the possibility that sham indictments against Republicans count as election interference in their states’ federal elections. Do you agree that Republican Attorneys General should take a more active role in investigating these matters? One suggestion for ending the weaponization of the criminal justice system for persecuting Republicans while letting Democrats escape justice has been suggested in an op-ed recently published by The Federalist, which states bluntly that “When politicians are tempted to prosecute their enemies for political reasons, they must fear the same thing happening to them”—specifically calling out left-wing individuals and entities like Hunter Biden, Alejandro Mayorkas, Black Lives Matter, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. At Wednesday’s debate, Christie should be asked whether he supports taking this approach, and if not, why he doesn’t. If current polling is any indication, Chris Christie’s odds of becoming the Republican presidential nominee are overwhelmingly low. But even so, his track record of cuddling up to the corporate media, supporting the left’s prosecution of conservatives, and peddling progressive talking points are deeply concerning—particularly for a Republican presidential candidate. This Wednesday, Christie must be forced to reckon with his actions, and the debate moderators—as well as Christie’s primary opponents—have a duty to ensure that he is held accountable. Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.