New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s endorsement of GOP front-runner Donald Trump Friday morning caught many in the press off guard, and left many in right-leaning media shocked and disgusted.
“I will admit, I was wrong to have as much respect for Chris Christie as I did,” said National Review’s Jonah Goldberg. “It profits a man nothing to lose his soul for the world, but for the job of Donald Trump’s pitbull…”
RedState’s Dan McLaughlin added separately, “Chris Christie is dead to me now for good. What an utter failure of moral character.”
“Christie: Conservatives rejected me, so umma help burn this mother down,” said Townhall columnist and Fox News contributor Guy Benson.
Even non-right-leaning journalists saw the endorsement as an act of craven opportunism.
“It’s official. Chris Christie now the worst person in America,” said Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake.
The Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman added, “Chris Christie proves decisively he is everything his haters said he was.”
The Republican governor announced his endorsement of Trump Friday morning during a press conference.
“I’ve been on that stage,” the failed 2016 presidential candidate said Friday at a press conference. “I’ve gotten to know all the people on that stage. And there is no one better prepared to provide America with the strong leadership that it needs both at home and around the world than Donald Trump,” Christie said at a joint press appearance in Texas alongside Trump.
The 2016 dropout also said that Trump was the “clear standout” in a GOP debate held Thursday evening in Texas, and said the businessman is “the person who will do exactly what needs to be done to make America a leader around the world again.”
Christie said Trump is the best-suited to take on Hillary Clinton, should she win the Democratic Party nomination.
“I can guarantee you that the one person that Hillary and Bill Clinton don’t want to see on that stage come September is Donald Trump,” the governor said. “They know how to run the standard political playbook against junior senators and run them around the block. They do not know the playbook with Donald Trump because he is rewriting the playbook.”
Though Christie’s endorsement was likely welcomed by Trump and his supporters, many in right-leaning media were quick to label the New Jersey governor a phony and a sellout.
“Christie told the American people Trump was a joke on foreign policy and now endorses him … the worst of the worst, the bottom of the barrel,” said Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin.
The Federalist’s Sean Sullivan noted, “Last month, Christie said a vote for Trump was a vote for Hillary. That was before he got his meal ticket punched.”
“There is nothing Trump stands for that Christie is on the record supporting. Nothing. It’s pure careerism,” Commentary’s Noah Rothman added.
Oops. pic.twitter.com/h7TW4QxWLt
— Spencer Jakab (@Spencerjakab) February 26, 2016
Not everyone in right-leaning media felt the same pang of disgust, though, as several notable talk radio hosts saw the endorsement as little more than a big get for the casino tycoon.
In January, when Christie was looking to scrounge up primary support in New Hampshire, he told a group of Granite State voters, “Showtime is over. We are not electing an entertainer-in-chief. Showmanship is fun, but it is not the kind of leadership that will truly change America.”
