How Christie and Trump’s friendship blossomed and then deteriorated
Their friendship started after getting acquainted through Donald J. Trump’s sister. It ended nearly 20 years later, when Mr. Trump refused to concede the 2020 election to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
In between, Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, and Mr. Trump had a relationship that could be genuinely warm, with conversations about politics and current events, and transactional at other times.
Mr. Christie boosted Mr. Trump by endorsing his 2016 candidacy after ending his own bid for the Republican nomination, then coached him for debates and led his first presidential transition team. In return, Mr. Trump left him for the vice president and attorney general roles.
Mr. Trump eventually returned to Mr. Christie for different advice during his term. But halfway through the presidency, Mr. Christie seemed to be content with it on the outside.
Their last conversation was in August 2021, according to a person briefed on the matter, when the former president had an aide send Mr Christie a stinging message.
Now they have entered a new chapter: open hostility. Mr. Christie announced his second presidential campaign in New Hampshire on Tuesday, aiming to bar Mr. Trump from a second term in the White House.
“I think he’s a coward and I think he’s a puppet of Putin,” Christie recently said in a conversation with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt about the man he once supported.
Here’s a look back at how their relationship grew, blossomed, and then withered.
Casual acquaintances, then presidential rivals
Mr. Christie was an American lawyer in New Jersey, where Mr. Trump still owned casinos, when the two men first dined together.
That introduction at the May 2002 dinner came through an intermediary, Maryanne Trump Barry, Mr. Trump’s older sister, who was a state federal judge at the time and described Mr. Trump to Mr. Christie as “my little brother.” In Mr. Christie’s 2019 memoir, “Let Me Finish,” he wrote about his first impressions of Mr. Trump, who would begin his career in two years as the star of the reality TV show “The Apprentice” .
“Donald was stubborn,” wrote Mr. Christie. “He was bombastic. He was entertaining. He talked about his business with contagious enthusiasm and great detail. I came away with the impression that the public Donald and the private Donald were much the same.
It was soon clear that Mr. Christie could one day end up as a candidate for governor. He won the office on his first attempt, in 2009, two years before Trump considered running for the White House against President Barack Obama.
Both men knew each other in the way prominent people in the New York media market tend to: casually, with paths occasionally crossing.
In 2015, both Mr. Christie and Mr. Trump finally declared their candidacy for the presidential election.
Mr. Christie, by then hampered by the “Bridgegate” retaliatory political scandal, had nonetheless formed a national political brand as an outspoken candidate.
Some, on the other hand, saw Mr. Trump as an afterthought that would eventually fade away, even if he led in the polls. At the time, Mr. Trump privately told Mr. Christie that he did not expect his campaign to last beyond October 2015.
Their relationship was tested. Two months after Mr. Trump entered the race, Mr. Christie told Fox News that the New York businessman did not have the “temperament” or experience to be president. Mr. Trump taunted Mr. Christie for being absent from New Jersey, where he was still governor.
In the end, Mr. Trump overshadowed his new rival — and all other rivals — with an endless stream of incendiary statements, including a proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country.
Mr. Trump saved his most hostile barbs for candidates other than Mr. Christie. In turn, the governor directed his most aggressive fire at Florida Senator Marco Rubio during a debate in New Hampshire shortly before the state’s primary, mocking a “25-second memorized speech.”
But after running for New Hampshire, Mr. Christie finished a dismal sixth and dropped out of the race.
An important ally, to some extent
When Mr. Trump won the South Carolina primary, Mr. Christie told his allies that the writing was on the wall — it was clear that Mr. Trump was on his way to becoming the nominee.
“I am proud to be here to support Donald Trump as President of the United States,” Mr. Christie said at an endorsement event in Florida in February 2016, as surprised reporters watched him praise Mr. Trump’s candidacy. After Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Mr. Christie was one of the first prominent Republicans to support Mr. Trump at a time when the party’s leadership was still trying to stop his rise to power.
Soon, Mr. Christie was a key adviser to Mr. Trump. He was also considered a potential running mate for a time, but some of Mr Trump’s advisers, including members of his family, opposed it. (Mr. Christie had also sued the father of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, years earlier, and Mr. Kushner opposed Mr. Christie’s selection.)
Mr. Trump ultimately chose Mike Pence, then the Governor of Indiana, who had been introduced to Mr. Trump through Mr. Christie.
Mr. Trump tried to hook Mr. Christie, the former governor wrote in his memoir. Pence to New York for a press conference.
Mr. Christie led Mr. Trump’s preparations for the general election debates against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. But after the October 2016 release of a recording in which Mr. Trump described grabbing women by their genitals, Mr. Trump privately complained that Mr. Christie had stopped vocally supporting him.
Mr. Christie also served as head of his transition team, a job from which he was fired by Mr. Kushner shortly after Election Day; Stephen K. Bannon, the chief strategist of Mr. Trump; and Reince Priebus, who would become Trump’s first White House chief of staff.
Behind the scenes, take a step back
Mr. Trump asked Mr. Christie to lead an opioid task force, an issue that had worried Mr. Christie as governor. Mr. Christie is also said to be a personal favorite of Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania.
But Mr. Trump decided not to give him the job of Attorney General, which went to Mr. Sessions. Instead, Mr. Christie said, the president offered him different positions at various points, including labor secretary and secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Trump also took a suggestion from Mr. Christie about who could replace the fired FBI director, James A. Comey. It was Mr. Christie’s attorney during the Bridgegate scandal, Christopher A. Wray, who was appointed and remains at the head of the bureau. Mr. Trump soon began complaining that Mr. Wray was not doing what he wanted at the agency, blaming Mr. Christie for a nomination that Mr. Trump had put forward.
Mr. Christie did not consider himself succeeding John F. Kelly as Mr. Trump’s chief of staff in late 2018, after Mr. Trump offered the job to Mr. Christie. By this time, it had become apparent that Mr. Trump was cycling past staffers and firing them at a rapid clip.
In February 2020, Mr. Trump pardoned a former software CEO whose leniency Mr. Christie had lobbied.
That year, Mr. Christie wrote Mr. Trump a lengthy memo instructing him on how to handle the coronavirus pandemic. It was ignored.
Mr. Trump re-enlisted Mr. Christie for debate preparation, and some of his aides blamed Mr. Christie when Mr. Trump’s first debate against Mr. Biden was disastrous. (Mr Trump appeared physically unwell during the debate and may have already been stricken with the coronavirus; news of his Covid diagnosis came days later.)
When both Mr. Trump and Mr. Christie were hospitalized with severe bouts of Covid shortly after that debate, Mr. Trump called his debate coach at the hospital. “Are you going to say you got it from me?” Mr. Trump asked Mr. Christie, the former governor later recounted in his second book, “Republican Salvation.” They both recovered, but Mr. Christie made it clear that he felt he should have worn a mask during the prep sessions, angering Mr. Trump.
To finish
Hours after Election Day ended, when Mr. Trump gave a speech alleging widespread fraud, Mr. Christie, then an ABC News contributor, said on air that Mr. Trump had to provide evidence.
In a November 2022 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Christie said he last spoke to Mr. Trump in December 2020, after the president saw him mocking Mr. Trump’s legal team on television. Mr. Christie told him to concede the election to Mr. Biden and receive the president-elect at the White House.
“He told me he would never, never, never, never do that,” Mr. Christie said. “And that was the last time we spoke.”
In 2021, Mr. Trump described Mr. Christie as an “opportunist” to a reporter. Four months later, he had an assistant send Mr. Christie a printout of a tweet from Mr. Christie about the pardon he had requested for the former software executive. “Chris,” he wrote, according to the person briefed, “How quickly people forget (some) – Best wishes,” with his signature.
Mr. Christie responded warmly and wished Mr. Trump well.
Shane Goldmacher reporting contributed.