Stephen Colbert Grills Chris Christie on Involvement With Trump Campaign

Former Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Thursday night, where he and the host debated Christie’s recent advisory role to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

“I might like you someday, and this is seriously endangering the possibility that that will happen,” Colbert quipped.

Colbert then grilled Christie on his involvement with Trump despite all of the president’s failings, including the Covid-19 crisis and his treatment of children at the Mexico border; Christie defended himself by saying he agreed more with the Republican Party’s conservative values than what he saw as an increasingly more progressive Democratic Party under Joe Biden.

During a particularly tense moment — when bringing up the United States’ Covid-19 deaths  —Colbert asked Christie to give Trump a “pass/fail” or letter grade based on his response to the pandemic. Christie waffled, noting that he himself had written an op-ed in support of wearing masks and social distancing back in early March and that certain aspects of the Trump administration’s Covid-19 response, including stimulus checks and ventilator shipments, were better than others, like the delay in mandating a full shutdown of mass gatherings.

Later, Colbert asked Christie to defend his belief that a Joe Biden presidency would lead to an out-of-control progressive government: “Tell me what is so terrifying about Joe Biden. ‘Terrifying about Joe Biden’ is hard sentence to sell. It’s Joe Biden, for Pete’s sake.”

Christie expressed fears that, while he doesn’t believe Biden will back down on his stance against Medicare for All, he does think Biden can be swayed into supporting the Green New Deal, which Christie believes would tank the economy on top of increased taxes and other Democrat-led policies.

Before Christie departed, Colbert made a quick dig at former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who was recently arrested on charges of fraud. “Will you go visit Steve Bannon in prison?” Colbert asked Christie. The former governor surprised Colbert and his team with one last quip of his own: “I wouldn’t visit Steve if he lived next door to me — that guy’s a bum.”

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