Chris Christie gets a super PAC ahead of his likely 2024 presidential bid

May 31, 2023

Allies of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have formed a super PAC to support him in the nascent Republican presidential primary, as he makes preparations for a likely campaign kickoff in the next two weeks, according to an official with the group and others briefed on the matter, reports The New York Times.

Christie’s candidacy is likely to focus in part on drawing a stark contrast with former President Donald Trump. Christie supported Trump in 2016 and worked with him during his presidency—but they split over Trump’s claims on election night in 2020 that the race was stolen from him.

People who have been close to Christie for years are leading the outside group, Tell It Like It Is, which is laying the groundwork for an imminent announcement, one of the people briefed on the matter said. Brian Jones, an aide who advised Senator John McCain’s presidential bid in 2008 and Mitt Romney’s in 2012, will run the effort.

Bill Palatucci, a longtime adviser to Christie and a Republican National Committee member, will be the chair. Another long-serving adviser to Christie, Russ Schriefer, will oversee messaging as a senior adviser; and Brent Seaborn, a veteran data guru, will focus on voter targeting.

Maria Comella, an adviser who also was chief of staff to former Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York; and Mike DuHaime, Christie’s top political strategist in 2016, are expected to run an eventual campaign if Christie announces as expected. Anthony Scaramucci, the hedge fund adviser who served for less than two weeks as a communications director in the Trump White House and has become a vocal Trump critic, has said he will support Christie if he runs.

Christie “is willing to confront the hard truths that currently threaten the future of the Republican Party,” Jones said in a statement. “Now more than ever we need leaders that have the courage to say not what we want to hear but what we need to hear.”

Christie has said recently that he would run if he believed he could win, but he had indicated that there were organizational issues he needed to figure out. The existence of the super PAC and the pending announcement suggest those issues have been resolved.

A Christie candidacy is seen as a long shot in a Republican Party that has been remade in Trump’s image eight years after Christie first ran for president. Trump vanquished him—and Christie dropped out after coming in sixth in New Hampshire, where he had staked his candidacy.

A central challenge of this campaign will be explaining to voters his transformation. He endorsed. Trump in 2016, helped him with debate prep and acted at times as an informal adviser during his presidency. Then, in the earliest hours of November 4, 2020, Christie split with him when he questioned Mr. Trump’s declaration that there had been widespread fraud in the election.

“We heard nothing today about any evidence,” Christie said in an appearance on ABC News. “This kind of thing, all it does is inflame without informing. And we cannot permit inflammation without information.”

Since then, Christie has become a full-throated critic of Trump, talking as a former federal prosecutor about the former president’s legal travails and describing him as a loser who can no longer command the crowds he once did. Christie’s candidacy is being watched by donors, who either like what he’s saying or see him as the best opportunity to damage Trump, particularly from a debate stage.

Christie appears to be banking on the notion that there are enough vestiges of the old Republican Party to which he can appeal. He will be coming into the 2024 race as the person with the most coherent case against Trump, while arguing that the fight needs to be taken directly to the former president.

Christie is hoping to tamp down some of the grievance that has seeped into the roots of political discourse in the Republican Party since Trump became the party’s nominee in 2016. Christie is approaching the race, allies say, with the goal of delivering a hopeful message.

Research contact: @nytimes

September 26, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris sat down with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday, September 25—fielding questions on her economic agenda, former President Donald Trump’s economic plans, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D), reports The Hill

.The MSNBC interview was a friendly forum for the vice president, who has been under pressure to ramp up her media presence. Harris sat down with Ruhle in Pittsburgh, following an economic-focused speech in which she laid out a framework for her manufacturing agenda.

Here are five takeaways from Harris’s interview on MSNBC:

Harris lays out pricey agenda

Much of the interview was spent talking about the economy and involved Harris outlining her agenda. Her “opportunity economy” involves a housing plan to help first-time homebuyers, a child tax plan that involves expanding credits to families, and a plan to boost small businesseswith tax deductions for entrepreneurs, among other proposals.

“If you are hardworking, if you have the dreams and the ambitions and the aspirations I believe you do, you’re in my plan,” she said.

When it comes to how to pay for some programs, Harris reiterated that she would not raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000—maintaining a pillar of President Joe Biden’s tax plan—but that corporations should pay their “fair share” in taxes.

Much of Harris’s economic agenda would need congressional approval, particularly when it comes to tax policy. That would make it an uphill battle, should Congress see a Republican majority; but also if either or both chambers are closely split between parties.

Ruhle questioned the vice president on polling that shows likely voters think Trump is better on the economy. Harris recently closed the gap with Trump on the economy in one survey — an Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll that found Harris and Trump with equal support on the issue.

“Donald Trump left us with the worst economy since the Great Depression,” Harris said, citing data that about 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the Trump years.

Walz pick was gut decision

Toward the end of the interview, Ruhle asked Harris when was the last time she made a “gut decision,” given that decisions made by presidents take “extraordinary instinct and guts.”

“When’s the last time you had to make a gut decision? This here is very prescribed. It’s very controlled,” Ruhle asked, referring to the interview setup.

“The biggest gut decision I made most recently was to choose my running mate,” Harris responded, referring to her decision to pick Walz to run as her vice president. “There were lots of good, incredible candidates, and ultimately that came down to a gut decision.”

Harris picked Walz in August, just more than a month after she announced her presidential bid. The governor emerged as a dark horse contender for the slot just before Harris made her choice, being selected over other more high-profile names Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly (D) ,who were largely viewed for weeks as the favorites for the position.

Harris knocks Trump on tariffs

Harris bashed Trump for his suggestion to place tariffs on foreign companies, which he has laid out repeatedly on the campaign trail.

“Part of it is, you don’t just throw around the idea of just tariffs across the board, and that’s part of the problem with Donald Trump,” Harris said when Ruhle asked about the former president’s plans to expand tariffs.

“He’s just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues,” Harris added. “One must be serious and have a real plan that’s not just about some talking point ending in an exclamation at a political rally.”

Trump gave an economic-focused speech this week in Pennsylvania, during which he spoke about his plan to use tariffs, continuing to expand on his claims that he wants to expand the use of tariffs if he’s elected.

He also threatened Illinois-based John Deerewith massive tariffs on its products if it outsources some of its manufacturing to Mexico, as it has previously announced.

Harris defends opposition to U.S. Steel sale

Harris defended her opposition to Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel acquiring U.S. Steel, after Ruhle mentioned the potential consequences of blocking it.

U.S. Steel warned earlier this month that it may cut staff and move its headquarters from Pittsburgh, if the company’s planned sale falls apart. Nippon Steel announced it would acquire U.S. Steel in December—prompting outcry from lawmakers, including Biden and Trump, who argued the deal could undermine national security and industrial capacity.

“It’s most important that we maintain America’s ability to have American manufacturing [of] steel by American workers for a number of reasons,” Harris said, defending the opposition.

“There is not a new industry that I can imagine that is not going to require steel,” she added, noting, “And having American workers in an American company manufacturing that steel for those industries is going to be critically important.”

Ruhle interview is Harris’s deepest on policy

Harris’s interview with Ruhle went deeper into her proposed economic policies than any of the other media appearances and interviews she’s done to date as the Democratic nominee.

Ruhle questioned Harris, for example, on how she planned to pay for such proposals and how the federal government would cut through red tape to reach municipalities on matters such as the shortage of housing.

The vice president outlined incentives the federal government can create for communities to build more homes and provide transit. Harris maintains that such proposals could be paid for with an increase in corporate taxes but has not gotten into details about how such hikes could get through Congress.

“I know that we have to reduce the red tape and speed up what we need to do around building, and that is going to require working from the federal level with state and local governments,” she said.

Research contact: @thehill