browse through our latest collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home decor and accessories. there's something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> american history tv saturdays on c-span2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 9:30 a.m. eastern bob calhoun discusses his book the murders that made us which looks back at 170 years of san francisco's history through crimes that mark each arabic at two p.m. eastern on the presidency president dwight eisenhower grandson david and author of going home to glory a memoir of life with dwight d eisenhower 1951-1959 talks about his leadership in military and about his leadership in military and as president about the forced the

shape too. it's pulling the american story. watch american history tv saturdays on c-span2, and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> naha about tonight program, are you ready? okay. great. so too many people chris christie is known as governor, abc news analyst, national spokesperson also new times best-selling author. mary pat christie has a crew that extends beyond our borders here having been aee successful career on wall street as well as holding the titley of first lad, with doing a number of programs across thet state and was always very well received. writing these parts they are simply friends, families, neighbors and fellow coaches. so we're pleased to have them in our community.

as a matter of fact it was three years ago almost three years ago when chris christie's first book came out, let me finish him that he was gracious and at a fundraiser on our behalf. we held that across town at the high school, a sold-out event on a brisk february evening. i am pleased to say with the second book chris was able to do a fundraiser, we said let's go for it. here we are again. both are needing three years ago and tonight are sellouts so you could say that tonight ticket a chris christie book signing ss tough but take it as hamilton on broadway. so our evenings program mary pat will moderate. chris will try to answer, maybe try to get run the questions we don't know yet and then we'll have some q&a with the mic right here in the center if you want to jump up and ask a question. and then please don't be bashful to ask questions. without further ado i present

mary pat and chris christie. [applause] here thank you, peter. want to make sure i don't have any feedback on this but but this is really really great. this is a nice a nice cozy group and and i just wanted to say thank you to peter and the board the library's been an important part of our our life and our families life for the last 30 years, which is amazing. we've been here for 30 years. so we really we really appreciate all that the libraries do and i actually just paid a fine a $40 fine to the library to two weeks ago. i had to pick up a book and i guess i hadn't been in a couple years. um, so i my $40 fine. you don't even want to know.

it was a book club book anyway, so, um well, thank you to everybody for coming out here. it's really it's been an interesting journey these last i guess six or seven months that it's taking you to to write this book and what i wanted to start out was to ask chris why he wrote it and also ask him to tell you us a little bit the process of writing it. sure. well, thanks everybody for being here tonight. it's great to be home. i've been on the road for most of the last two and a half weeks except for a couple days around thanksgiving on a book tour where i've been in new york and chicago los angeles and washington and so it's been it's been a busy. it's been a busy few weeks and it's good to to have my last official book event at home. so, thank you all for coming out tonight. i decided to write the book mary pat and i went away for a few days after joe biden's inaugural. i i did the abc commentary on

president biden's inaugural and then we decided to take a few days down to florida to relax after what had been a really much more grueling than normal tv schedule because of all the craziness surrounding the election how long it took for the results to come and all the rest. so we went down to florida for a few days. and i was sitting at the pool and thinking to myself that you know, this is probably one of the worst two years the republican party had had in a long time. we lost the majority of the house representatives in 2018. and then we lose the senate and the white house in 2020. and i thought it struck me as somebody who's obviously been involved in stuff for a long time that it may have been one of the worst times we ever had and so sitting by the pool, i then got on my laptop and kind of looked it up. it's only happened twice. to the republican party since our founding in 1860. of the last time after this one

1930 to 1932. when herbert hoover was president united states, he lost the house the senate the white house within two years. and what happened after that was the democrats had the white house for 28 of the next 36 years. and so it struck me that. maybe somebody who had been a you know. very big oil supporter of president trump's needed to write a book about how we start to win again. if someone who had been opposed to president trump all the way through and there are a number of republicans. who who were i don't think they would have credibility in writing this book. people i think would have dismissed it. but i had real concerns about where our party was headed. direction we were going in and the immediate aftermath of the election. and i had ideas about you know, what we needed to do to get back on track. so process of writing a book is you pitch the book?

to publishers and we had a couple publishers who were interested, but all of them said if you're gonna write that kind of book the first part of the book has to be about your interaction with the president in the last year and a half of the administration after let me finish the first book ended. through to his leaving office in january. so when you when you get a chance to read the book if you haven't already. is the first third of the book? is kind of a recounting of stories and incidents that happen with me in the president. and that's where i started the writing of the book now. i have a collaborator on the book ellis hannigan, who was my collaborator on the first book as well. and ellis ellis, and i have a process we use in writing the book the way we do it is we get together. we agree on which topics are going to be discussing that day. he takes out of tape recorder. he starts asking me questions and i start talking. then there is a poor woman out

in kansas who has to transcribe all of that. she then sends the transcriptions back to me and to ellis and then we craft chapters out of the transit out of the transcriptions. then when we get done with that, there's another poor woman who then has to do the research to make sure that everything that we say that we're completely sure of. is actually true. and and i'll give you one example from let me finish. where i would have absolutely sworn that this was a correct recollection. i had a good friend of mine in high school. who was murdered? and i was telling that story to ellis at that time and he said when it's happened i said it was the he had day before school started my senior year in high school. so we write the book and and write that that chapter the and and then comes back and he says are you sure it was the day before? will start for senior year i

said, absolutely sure. i remember it like it was yesterday. you really sure. yeah. well this woman found. the front page of our local weekly paper in livingston and it was actually the day before the starting of school my junior year. not my senior year i guarantee you. if you all put a gun to my head. and said if you're wrong, we're going to blow your brains out. i would have said go ahead because i know it i absolutely know it. so roberta plays a really integral role in the process by researching everything that we talk about and make sure that we have it right first and foremost for the integrity of the book and then second the lawyers at simon and schuster want to make sure that we don't say something. that's so blatantly wrong that all of us will get sued so then chapter by chapter comes in we're working on it together. i'm doing a lot of editing and changing. i'm so maybe his initial language into my voice.

and we probably go back and forth on each chapter two to three times. where he makes suggestions i make suggestions and we're volleying it back and forth by email. and and then we get the manuscript done and we send it to our editor. at simon & schuster she then will send it back to us with notes in the margins. things she wants us to explain more things that she wants us to add. and in this instance, we are on a very tight. deadline because to get to start a book when we started this in march. to have it out by november is apparently like land speed records for publishing now. i don't get that but i don't want to argue with the publisher because they're paying me so i'm gonna argue with them. so we were working really quickly. we got to her stuff. she then decided she wanted. another additional chapter on something and she sent this to us by email and ellis called me

and said did you read natasha's latest email? and i said, no not yet because don't. don't i'm going to break it to you gently she wants another chapter. and so literally what we did was we were on the phone with each other and i said on what and it was a chapter on? no, it's not covid policy. and we talked about covid a lot in the book in the first part in my experience with covid. i'm sure we'll get to that but this is on what should our policy be going forward on how to deal with it. i really think you need to do a chapter on that. so, okay, and by the way, and i need it. in two days so ellis i said dallas. all right. turn on your tape recorder. we don't have time to get together like turn it on and let's go and we just started to go and within the two days we had that last chapter done and then the last thing you do is you write the dedication. and the acknowledgments until

you see the dedication in the front of the book is to our four children and the acknowledgments in the back are a whole lot of people who contributed to helping me with the book or just contributed to helping me in this part of my life and career. so that's the way you write a book and believe me when you're finally done with the acknowledgments and you hit send and they acknowledge. they've received it. you don't want to see it again. you don't want to so you don't want to see the book until it looks like that and when it does all you redo is look at the cover and the title page which you sign and i i have not. looked at the text. since late august when i when i sent it back out. yeah, and you also chris also did an audiobook so that was a painful like 25 hour experience, i believe and then the other thing some of us read it and edited it. i'm just going to tell a little insight story that the cover is the elephant with the life preserver.

it originally had a red cross on it, but the red cross opposed that yeah, it was holding. it was holding a red cross flag in a trunk and the red cross wouldn't give us permission to use it on the cover. so we had to go to the red and white life preserver, which which i think is great but on the final copy the the little elephant on the side had still had the red cross flag. and i flagged it she did very pat bought it i sent it to i go here's where the cover looks and she it's wait a second. the elephant on the side has the flag that will tell you what -- the red cross. yeah that that will tell you how little i wanted to look at this anymore. i say, all right, whatever. yeah, go ahead five will tell them so but it was good catch because we probably would have gotten sued by the red cross. so good good miss on that so that's the process of of the way at least i've i've written this book and and pretty much the same process the last time for let me finish as well. that's great. well, chris is a student of history loves history and i'm part of this book.

there's a lot of history and it actually talked to talk to the audience about the fact that we go over conspiracy stories and why it's so important to review history and in particular the john birch society and i think they might find that interesting to know that background, you know when i started talk about the idea of and make the argument for why? engaging in and spending any more time on all these different conspiracy theories that have been out there q and on pizza gate birtherism and the election stuff i thought i had a place in some historical context like this is not the first time we've gone through this. as a country or as a party. so i write extensively a pretty large chapter on the john birch society. which in the late 50s and early 60s became a force inside the republican party. very much one that had an anti-semitic strain to it.

it ran in through a number of conspiracy theories in that regard and became a real force inside the republican party. and william f buckley was the founder of national review magazine have a thought leader in the conservative movement was horribly disturbed by these developments and by the development of seeing how prominent the john birch society was becoming in our in republican party politics. so he approached barry goldwater. and knowing that goldwater was considering running for president in 1964 and said the goldwater look. we should do this together. and push back on these people and if we do so together, i think we could have a real impact on the party. so let's i'll write the first editorial. in the national review and then you write a letter to the editor to the national review supporting the editorial.

goldwater agrees and and buckley writes a 4,000 word editorial. the national review about why the john birch society is so bad for america and so bad for the republican party talks in depth about the anti-semitism and why that's so bad. goldwater was this out? no other way to put it. he starts to get pressure back. from john birchers inside the republican party. he's worried that if he does this he won't win the nomination in 1964. and so he writes back a very very short week. letter to buckley which is nothing like what they had agreed upon. so buckley decides that he's not going to publish it at first. and he goes to somebody else. see who has credibility to conservative movement to see if he'll back buckley up on this. he went to ronald reagan.

who at that time was not even an elected official? he had given a speech in 1964 on behalf of goldwater. early on called run it was the speech was entitled rendezvous with destiny. and reagan it become a very popular figure inside the conservative movement because of this speech. he would be elected two years later in 1966 as governor, california, but reagan stood up and wrote a long impassioned letter. as a former democrat as to why he thought the birchers were not somebody that we should be embracing or empowering inside the republican party. and it absolutely did the trick. goldwater ran in you you may remember goldwater's speech at the convention one of the most famous lines was extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. that's directly john birch

language. and he lost monumentally. in fact a little morris county historical note barry goldwater was the last republican. to lose morris county for president until donald trump in 2020 from 64 to 2020 mars county voted for every republican presidential candidate. they rejected goldwater. and they rejected trump in 2020. and and i think there's an interesting i didn't put it in the book because nobody would really care about that historical comparison, but this audience will and i think it says something about historical comparison that we're making so i think it's it's an interesting chapter to place the chapters that follow into context. which is whether you're talking about birtherism or qanon or pizza gate or the election? conspiracies that we're not in a

unique time. i i hate when i hear commentators on television say we are in the most dangerous time in the history of this country where more divided than we've ever been in our history. now. i had someone say that abc one day and and then george came to me and i said, i don't know. seems to me the civil war was probably a time when we were more divided. you know, then we are then we are now. just a random thought but you know, maybe we could check a little common sense into all hyperbole and the reason for historical context is to tell you we've been here before and remember what happened after that. after that, we won the presidency five of the next six times. between 1968 and 1992 so the republican party recovered they became once again a national force at the presidential level because we got back to basics. and that's part of what the book's all about.

that's great along those same lines as history repeats itself. i love when you were doing debate prep with the the president and you went into debate prep with reams of examples of articles from previous presidents incumbent presidents. tell the audience what you told president trump and well why why your advice was prescient president? i did debate prep for 2016. i i watch it all the close your eyes and picture this for a moment. i played hillary clinton. in debate prepared 2016 and and i i didn't do the first debate in 2016. he had like the cast of ben-hur, you know prepping him for that first debate and his performance kind of reflected that and after the first debate. he called me and he said look will you do debate preparing for the second debate?

and i said only if i'm in charge of it and only if i get to decide who's in the room because if we're gonna have every tom -- and harry in the room, room, i don't care to play. and he said you're in charge. so we did the bay prep for him in 2016 for the second and the third debate and just one quick aside. i didn't go to the second debate. we went to the first one, but we didn't go to the second one and we watched the second debate at home. and seven or eight minutes after the debate was over. he got done shaking hands on the stage and taking pictures my phone rang and it was donald trump. and he said to me. my because you're so great. that was so easy. he goes it was so easy compared to debating you. it was great. he's better hillary clinton. he said yours. you're a better hillary than she is. he said so you're gonna do debate three, right? yeah, mr. prayer donald. yes. so 2020 comes in his staff comes

to me his chief of staff at the time was mark meadows. and jared kushner his son-in-law who if you read the first book is a dear friend of mine. i came to me and said we watch you back in charge of debate prep again. so does the president this now in july? and they go we want to start this weekend. the first debate was late september and i said to them he's not gonna like this. it's too early. they go. no, no, he needs a lot of work i go. i know he needs a lot of work, but but he's not gonna like this and they insisted that they had spoken to him. and that he was fine with it. and three o'clock on saturday in bedminster. okay, so president united states watching to come you go. so i show up we're sitting in the conference room at on the first floor of the clubhouse in bedminster and in walks the president from his round of golf.

and he sits down and i'm sitting in the chair across from him. he sits down. he looks at me goes what the hell are you doing here? and i said debate prep and he goes are you kidding me? he said debate prep in july for the end of september. how stupid do you think i am? of looking now at jared and at meadows, we're both in the room are like thanks. i just knew that this was a setup. i knew they hadn't spoken to him because they didn't have the guts to talk to him and they just figured, you know, i charm him. so i had prepared for his mary pat said and i went back and since the modern era presidential debates restarted in 1976 she had debate beach debates between and nixon in 1960. and then there were no debates in 64 68 or 72. and then at 76 gerald ford was way behind jimmy carter in the race coming out of the conventions.

so he agreed that debates with carter. so that's started the modern era now ever since then there have been presidential debates every four years. but what i brought him were articles that i printed out. from 76 from 80 84 92 96 2004 and 2012 those were the elections when there was an incumbent president. seeking re-election or election and gerald ford's case. and in every one of them. the president the incumbent president lost the first debate. every time and i went back and spoke to some of the folks who prepped. those presidents for the debates. i called them they all knew i was doing trump and so i called them and they all told me the

same thing which i suspected which was presidents don't want to prep. because they're president. they're like you know, i'm the president. oh i need to prepare for a debate for i am the president. now this this guy or woman over here, they don't know the presidency. i know the presidency. i'm the president. so what i sat down i said we need to start now mr. president. and he said i mean no joke he goes. tell the wife to prepare for i'm president. i'm like, that's so great, right? so i go into my briefcase and i take out a stack article this thick and i said i toss them across the table to them. and i said i want i said debate prep is over. i said we're not doing anything else today. so i want you to do is go back tonight and read those articles. and then i'll see you next time. you want you want to see me? and i got up. and jared in middleburg. well, maybe we should just talk in general about kind of biden style. and i said you guys can talk

about biden style. i said read the articles mr. president and he said what are they about? and i said how every incumbent president lost because they thought they didn't need to prepare because they were president sound familiar. and he said, is that true? which is also another indication to you about kind of the the depth of historical knowledge. of donald trump about politics. i mean, he just doesn't have any and so this was all news to him and i gave it to him and i walked out and jared and meadows followed me out to the front of the club and bedminster. and i looked up and i go. you guys like? you're so fully --. um, you never talked to it right? you never talk to him. and of course they denied and said they did but you know, the guy was clearly surprised to see me there and didn't want to do prep so, you know, he read those articles. of course, he did not follow any of the advice, but he read the articles because he called me a couple of days later. and here was the conclusion he

drew from that. he said he goes those other guys are so bad. i can't believe how bad all of them were. i'm not gonna be like that chris. i'm gonna be really good. okay, mr. president, you got it. yeah, he didn't go he must not have been a boy scout being prepared was not his yeah. okay. yeah, we could go into the preparation for the debates, but it was 16 was difficult. because in the midst right at the end of the prep for the second debate access hollywood happens right, so i'm i'm in the middle of prepping him. on the friday afternoon before the sunday debate. and in came as press secretary with the transcript of the access hollywood tape that kind of derailed us for a little while. i made it difficult, but he was very receptive to preparation in 2016. and because he knew even though he wouldn't admit that he lost

the first debate. he knew he lost the first debate and he didn't want to lose again. he's very receptive to preparation. he he was much less receptive in 2020. so moving on to different topic but something the book really talks a lot about is all these conspiracies theories, but talk to this audience in the way you do so well about where the proof is that obviously donald trump lost the election, but but get some specifics about the suburban women and where he lost votes and how he actually gained votes in the cities. yeah, well like if you listen to the president talk about this. has a number of different theories. about why the election was stolen? and what you'll learn after reading and the way i try to approach it. in the book is in my job two jobs ago. not my last job. i try not to learn right like the governor. i try to write like the united states attorney. and and i take the approach of

if i had to prove this. in court what would i do? because that's what i'm trying to do to all of you. are trying to set you have any doubts about this. i want to address those issues. lay out the facts and then let you draw your own conclusion. but obviously i'm taking it from the perspective of i believe the evidence. supports as i did when i was us attorney if i'm bringing a case, i think obviously the evidence supports the case. i'm bringing so a few things one of the theories is that the election was stolen from him in, pennsylvania in philadelphia. and it was stolen from him in michigan in detroit. you've heard him say this. oh the the boxes of ballots who showed up in the middle of the night in detroit and it philadelphia, you know, they were filling out ballots there that you know, no one no one was accounted for there were ballots than people. registered to vote. you've heard all these things. well we go through what the part

the registration numbers are in, pennsylvania. and how there were significantly fewer people who voted than who were actually registered to vote in, pennsylvania. we look at philadelphia. philadelphia donald trump actually got 3% more of the vote. in 2020 that he did in 2016. in the city of philadelphia and joe biden got 1% less of the vote. in philadelphia then hillary clinton did i would argue to you. that's a very unsuccessful steel job. when you let the guy you're trying to steal from get three percent more and the guy you're trying to steal four get one percent less. so illogical each they didn't steal it. now the other thing you'll hear about pennsylvania is wait a second when i went to bed. donald trump was winning, pennsylvania by 700,000 votes. and then i wake up. and he's losing by 80,000 votes. they stole it. no.

we had a very unusual election in 2020 because we had the most mail-in ballots ever used in the history of our presidential election and each state. decided differently how they were going to count the votes in what order? so for instance in ohio. when you went to bed. and looked at, ohio. joe biden was winning, ohio. when you woke up. donald trump won ohio by nine points by the same, pennsylvania theory trump still, ohio from biden now here's what happened. in ohio they counted the mail-in ballots first. the male and ballots were overwhelmingly across the country and in some places 70 to 75% democrat. for two reasons one democrats were generally more fearful of covid than republicans. so they were more fearful to go

out to a polling place and vote in person. secondly, donald trump said all summer and all fall. talent ballots are rigged. don't don't trust me. i'm in ballots vote on election day. so republican voters listen to the leader of the party. and they didn't vote by mail. they voted at the machines that day. so in ohio, they voted they counted all the mailing votes first. biden was up by seven points. we're watching an abc because we didn't know which way they were doing it until we started ask them questions. so we're going to abc say was joe biden wouldn't ohio? by seven well, then they count the machine votes in ohio, and it was a 16 point swing. trump went from down up down seven to up nine. the one by nine in pennsylvania, it was the exact opposite. pennsylvania they decided to count the machine votes first. hence, donald trump's up by

700,000 votes then they can't mail in votes. and he loses by 80 in, pennsylvania. a very similar swing in terms of numbers and percentage that you saw in ohio, but going trump's favor. lastly in pennsylvania something was in stark relief that happened all across the country and i would suggest to you. is why donald trump was the first republican presidential candidate since barry goldwater to lose morris county. the collar counties outside, philadelphia for suburban county's outside, philadelphia chester county, delaware county montgomery county outside, what's the chester delaware montgomery bucks right box in in 2016 versus 2020 donald trump lost those four counties by a hundred and four thousand more votes. to joe biden then he lost the hillary clinton. he lost both times.

but he lost by 104,000 votes more. in those four suburban counties that he did in 2016. he lost the entire state by 80. so if you need to know why donald trump lost, pennsylvania. he lost pennsylvania for the same reason he lost morris county. white educated suburban voters who gave him a chance of 2016? largely abandoned him in 2020 and i am sure in this town. and your friends across the county. and in a greater percentage by women than men. but both both women and men suburban white educated voted far less for trump in 2020, and he didn't 2016. but could apply to yourself. if you apply to friends of yours you've spoken to. but there's no question. that that's what happened to him. that's where he lost in, michigan. that's where he lost in, wisconsin.

over and over again. it was those suburbs outside milwaukee outside detroit outside, philadelphia. who had voted forum in 2016 and did not. and i talked about one anecdotal. the story in the book with a woman who shall remain nameless because she lives in this town who had been a volunteer for both of my gubernatorial campaigns and she saw me in kings the day before the election. let's go through. she said governor what's going to happen tomorrow? and i said look, i think to be a lot closer than people think but i think biden's gonna win. that's kind of look down at her shoes and sort of shaking her head. now. i knew this woman was a really strong republican. she had worked for me twice both times for governor. and i said all i know. disappointed. i'm sorry because oh no i voted for biden. and i looked and i said you voted for by. why? and she said governor. i couldn't listen to that voice for another.

so part of what we need to understand and this is why it's so difficult for donald trump to accept this. because it was not a rejection of his policies. it was a rejection of him personally. by a group of voters who had been with him four years earlier? and i can tell you somebody's been on the ballot in one. and somebody's been valid and lost. first of all winning is much better. and secondly losing his intensely personal you know politics different than sports. sports you could have a good day or a bad day. sometimes you win. sometimes the other person is better. they have a better day. it doesn't mean that you're rejected. it just means that that day the other guy was better. the other woman was better. in politics they looked at you. and they looked at the other person and went now i'll take them. i don't want you.

it is i could tell you from having felt it. it's intensely personal. and so when people wonder why donald trump is having such a hard time. accepting this in part not in whole but in part. it's because he knows. what i just said is absolutely true. and that it was a personal. rejection and we go through all of the other i give you just a sample, but there's a number of other. arizona, you know all the different, georgia different places you argues about so that's a good segue into what will be my last question for you and then we'll take some questions from the audience, but tell us your view. there's right now an effort in the legislation legislature to federalize voting rights and voting systems rather. can you tell us your view on federalizing that the voting laws and what? you would do. well look in congress.

they want a federalized all the rules. of voting i have to tell you you don't want to live in my opinion under that system. each state is different. how we could ever think that voting rules? that would be good for wyoming? will be good for new jersey. um when wyoming is the least densely state in america? new jersey is the most densely populated state in america. challenges that we face in voting the accommodations we have to make are significantly different secondly. the constitution i think is pretty clear on this. that these decisions are supposed to be made by each individual state. and you know i go back to third. the federal government's running it what what could possibly go wrong? right. i mean imagine that the federal governments could be in charge charge of counting all the votes. so instead of having all the

really great people that we have in the firehouse. when we go there as volunteers. paid a little bit but not paying nearly as much as they should be to sit there all day and help us vote. imagine those people all get replaced. federal employees come in. yeah. i don't think so. and so, you know. what we need to do is like look at what happened to morris county how long it took us to count the vote. here's why? because usually you have like 10 or 12,000 paper ballots and every other time it's all on the machines. well this time we had. a huge multiple that almost 200,000 paper ballots. they have the same number of machines to count the paper ballots. as they did when we was 10,000. because they couldn't get ready that quickly. they didn't know covid covid comes in march of 20. you can't order those machines

to get them here by november of 20 even if you wanted to. so one of the things that i think that all of us in this state in particular given a number of voters we have but all across the country need to do is not assume that we're going to go back in 2022 or 2024. to a very small amount of mail-in ballots i think some people have gotten used to that they like it. it's convenient for them. and i think we're gonna have a lot more mail-in voting over time. so we better get more machines. to count these votes because the other reason why we have so many conspiracy theories is the longer it takes for us to tell you who won the more you're wondering. what the hell are they up to? who's messing around with this and it's just an and i talk about that a little bit the book that it's a natural american thing. it goes all the way back to the founding of the country, right? that there's been conspiracy theories about politics. throughout our founding and that's what happens to the free

society where people get to express their opinions. their opinions don't have to be right. they just have to be opinions and they get to express them. and i always remember, you know what brendan byrne used to say. i had a lot of fun with governor byrne. i miss him. he was one of the funniest people i've ever met and one of the lines he used to use all the time was i made my wife ruthie promise that when i die that she'll bury me in hudson county so i can remain active in politics. so i want to make clear to you and i say this in the book. i'm not saying that irregularities did not happen on election day this year they did. and by the way, they happen in, new jersey. few months ago and they happen in new jersey when i ran in 09. and in 13 it happens all the time. the question is are there enough for regularities to change the results of the election in any one state? let alone the five states.

that would have been necessary to change the result of the election. and that i think we've proven the book is just you know not possible. so, you know, that's i think an important thing to remember. and if you think you don't trust the county clerk in morris county to count the votes. wait to some federal bureaucrat is counting your vote. forget it conspiracy. theories will be tripled and quadrupled and to that scenario. at least we know who anne crossy is and if and you know, if we think ann's messing around we can kick her out. you're not going to get rid of a federal bureaucrat who's in charge of the election process. thank you for explaining that. emphasizing it so i think if anybody has questions, then we can move to the audience. yeah, so biker there's a microphone right in the middle. oh. and i think we need to use the microphone not because i can't hear you without it. but because the tv guys were here tonight.

sorry, thank you. my question is if the biden administration continues to have some headwinds. do you think mainstream media will turn against them? well, i'll say this. not completely against them. no because look the mainstream media in this country. is slanted towards the left. i mean, there's just there can't be any question about that anymore. right? in fact, they're almost playing it up. um, watch watch me on sundays. it is almost never. not three to one. without doing that round table on abc it is almost always three to one. every once in a while, they run a poor republican in there to sit with me but most of the time. it's three to one and that's even on one of the networks if you go to the news networks. they revel in their slant right cnn and msabc are reveling in a

leftward slant. they think that's as profitable for them and fox rebels in a rightward slant. and so, you know i say to folks all the time. you should watch a little bit of both. just so you realize. that there are really two different worlds. we're living in right now. two different ways to look at issues. and most of the time you're going to come back to the way you think about things, but that's why you know, if you if you look at the at the bottom of our driveway our kids. jesus endlessly about this that we still get actual newspapers. our kids are like are you kidding? we get a newspaper for like just go on your phone, but we still get them if you look at the bottom of our driveway on corey lane. there's three newspapers every day. the wall street journal to give us the conservative side of things the new york times so i know what the enemy is thinking. and the new york post just have fun. so you know, i

>> so i think you should get, and on media as well. i painfully watch and when i watch -- i can't watch msnbc, i can't, it's too much for me, but between cnn and fox because i want to see how whatever the big stories of the day are how they cover them differently and you'll find they cover them completely differently and em emphasize which stories. >> let's say there's a big story on wall street and a big story in washington d.c. cnn will cover the washington d.c. story and they will cover it with nothing, but democratic members of the house and senate and democratic pundits

commenting on it. fox news won't cover the washington story unless it's really big. they won't cover the wall street either, they'll cover immigration and there will be stories about immigration and the border and then second and third. and it's educational to watch all of it. as much as you can put up with because it helps to inform me at least when i'm talking to people on the other side as to why they think some of the things they think. and they think it because that's what they're hearing and the news they're watching the i don't know if we have any hope of them playing it down the middle. i think those days are over. >> i happen to think one of the biggest failings, if not the biggest failing of the country is the state of inner city public schools. i think it creates a generation of failure and i know why the democratic party can't get there, but when you see the lines of people desperate to

get their kids into charter schools and anything to not go to the public school that they're at, why hasn't it taken hold in the population to live there to get behind school choice, school vouchers, charter schools? because the party that they're voting for is entrenched in absolutely not supporting that and then the cycle is perpetuated and never gets better. i can't understand why that population hasn't moved to the school of choice argument. to the charter school argument, which is, you know, the can't be supported by the other party? >> i would say there's two reasons. the first one is habit. you know, folks in the inner cities have got ten into the habit of voting democrat and they just have a hard time breaking that habit unless, point two, republicans

aggressively campaign there and make the argument. i would tell you, that i think in the main, our party has done a lousy job. i'll make that argument. republicans, many of them, tend to be uncomfortable going into those communities and making those arguments and i think that it's foolhardy. if you look at what happened with me in 2013 after four years of arguing hard that public education was failing, the very children you're talking about, and arguing why and authorizing more charter schools than any governor ever has, all of that, what happened? we got more votes in newark and jersey city, we won maome, union city. what i've tried to argue to

republican across the country is you've got to go to places you're uncomfortable in and go to those places to make the arguments that you know that that group of voters needs to hear. and to me, you're right, the education issue and virginia just shows this. the education issue will cut across parties. parents care most about their children and they want their children to get a good education. and i will tell you that the biggest supporters i have in 2013 in the cities were the pastors of most of the major churches in places like newark, camden, trenton and harrison. of all the nominations, including imams in muslim mosques in patterson and camden, because they say to me when i was governor, we're tired of seeing the children who sit in our pews every sunday, constantly be failed by

the public school system. now, the reason that is doesn't take 2.3 is the teachers unions across this country spend an exorbitant amount of money in making sure that it doesn't. so like i hear now in our state, and i hear our current governor touting that we have the best schools in america. okay, for some kids, that he's a democrat who is supposed to be the one who cares more about the underprivileged. yet, he won't say one word about the failure in our urban schools because to do that would run counter to his patrons in the teachers union. and you all saw when i ran against the teachers union in '09 and 10 and 11, they beat me

senseless. the money they spent was extraordinary and i wanted to end on a more upbeat and funny note. in 2010, the call fall of 2010 we were in the midst of the first fight against the teachers union. and we were in one of the s.u.v.s with troopers on the turnpike and we got off the exit and going through the toll and up to the left was one of those big turnpike billboards and it was a picture of me and it said chris christie hates children. [laughter] >> and it was an awful picture of me. >> a picture-- >> an awful picture of me, right? at that time our son patrick, who for those of you here who know our family, our son patrick the straw that stirs the drink in our house, he was 10 years old at the time. i didn't know that they'd noticed it.

i saw it and i was hoping they didn't see it and patrick goes, hey, dad, your people have to get better pictures of you. [laughter] >> and i said, patrick, did you read what the billboard said? those are not my people and he goes, i don't know, dad, it was a really bad picture. [laughter] >> that's another reason that happened as well. >> hi, governor chrissie, you brought up governor burns and i'm compelled to tell a story 1985 when brenneman byrnes and know morristown supporting a democrat, and had a fundraiser in princeton, new jersey and he looks up at bradley and says, you know, i don't understand why you happen to be running as a democrat because most of the

democrats i know from hudson county follow the same pattern, they get elected, they get indicted and they get sentenced. [laughter] >> i had the similar experience in my old job, yes. >> on another note i wanted to ask you about october 22nd in 2020 at an event that you happened to be there, which was the sort of garden party, preceding the debate between biden and trump and i think we all know what happened subsequent to that garden party and namely that trump obviously tested positive for the covid. and there were all sorts of supporters of trump sitening those chairs, yourself included, and amongst others. how do you feel at the time he knew he had the coronavirus, how do you feel about trump now, a gentleman who you supported, you know, for

president in terms of his loyalty to his closest associates and putting them essentially in peril, you know, as a result of this subsequent test he had for testing positive. >> i'll say a few things about that. just to kind of gently correct the record a little bit. my understanding is that he tested positive the next day from what i've read now. it doesn't change the thesis of your question, except it changes it for what happened the day before. the day before everybody who was sitting there, i don't believe by the way that that event was a super spreader event. it's called that, but the people who got covid in the main were only three people who were at that party who got covid who were not involved in debate prep. and one of them was father jenkins of notre dame.

there were two others. i'm absolutely convinced that we all got covid in debate prep. seven of us in debate pret including president and six of us got covid. and it's disturbing to me having heard the first time a day or two ago in mark meadows book that the president tested positive for covid prior to him sitting closer than i am to you for four days and preparing him for the debates. and you know, if there's a story in the book about after i was in-- i got put in the hospital, he was in the hospital as well, and he called me and this story now makes much more sense to me than it did up to anytime up to two days ago and he called me, how are you doing and i said not well, this is really bad and you sound bad, too. and he goes into his normal--

can you believe two tough guys like us got this thing? we're so tough, how could this have gotten us? we're like the two toughest guys in america. and i don't understand it. i say, i don't know. i don't know, either mr. president, he then got to the point of the call. he said so how do you think you got it? so i don't know, mr. president, i said, i'm pretty confident i got it at the white house, but since six of the seven of us got it, like who knows who patient zero was, i don't know. but i said, i obviously got it in the white house. he then said to me, you're going to blame it on me, are you? and i said why would i blame it on you? i don't know that you're the one that gave it to me. it happened in that room, but, i don't know, you're sick, too. he said you're not going to tell the press that i gave it to you. >> i said i wouldn't say that because i don't know that it's

true. now, up until two days ago my thought process on that was, that that was just donald trump's paranoia, that he didn't want to be blamed. i was always a little suspicious because every one of us, beside him, got tested every day before we went in. so the process was during that time. you went to the gate at the white house, you got admitted, someone escorted you to the eisenhower building next door where the medical unit is. you go into the medical unit, they swab you, you sat there for 15 minutes and they got the results of the test, if you were negative you were authorized to go over to the west wing, so i was always a little suspicious as to whether one of us got a false positive-- a false negative, rather, or whether it was him because he was the only one we didn't know whether he was getting tested every day or not. we wouldn't know. he's the president.

so, yeah, i mean, look, i think for me and mary pat and especially how bad my experience with covid was and you know, in the intensive care unit for seven days and, you know, a couple of moments really feeling like, it was going to go the wrong way, you know, finding that out a couple of days ago, if in fact what meadows says is true, because he tries to hedge it a little in the book and then he got a negative test after that, you know, so they weren't sure whether or not. but at a minimum, what we were owed, everybody in that room, me, bill acception, kellyanne conway, steve miller, hope hicks and the other miller, and i said stevens, the other miller, jason miller, who is the only one who didn't get it. so presumably he's owed now nothing, but the rest of us

were owed to be told that because i will tell you this we would have worn masks if we were. and we weren't wearing a mask at the event because every person at the amy coney barrett event all had been tested before they were allowed to come in and tested negative. and afterwards. whatever the president did, he's got to live with his own conscience, and i'm not going to be able to impose guilt on him. he's going to feel it or not about what he did, if he was positive, to all of us, but what i will tell su that for me, i said this after i got out of the hospital, it was it mistake for me not to wear the mask. i became convinced that i was in a safe zone because all of us had been tested and i was wrong. now i probably know why i was

wrong. i didn't know then, but regardless i probably should have just worn the mask at whole time and would have been an extra layer of safety for me and that's why i said the stuff i said afterwards, but, yeah, as you might imagine when mary pat and i both saw that pop up on our phone earlier this week, in early in the morning, we had an interesting reaction. >> thank you. >> thank you. and for the book. >> you're welcome. >> as you mentioned, the irregulari irregularities, and you believe there were irregularities, don't you believe that the democratic party developed a system and that they are implementing it for the town they control and then million ballot, they're using the system and somehow that we definitely have to be concerned about and that same happened to donald trump and the same happened to, i think in new

jersey, about an election here. and i know certain areas that are highly controlled by the democrat people. they use machines and they do all the things to influence mel million voter and using the machine, especially school system to teach our kids and when they graduate they become 90% democratic. so, if the system, it's a corruption, and if we're not going to stand up against the all the republicans and say, no, no, it doesn't exist as much as we need to worry about and i'm feeling that it's gotten to that point, and eventually new jersey, california, illinois we're never going to get republican elected and new jersey it's been happened. you were elected and did a good job in two terms, but you see the assembly and senate they know how to win it, the recipe. >> let me respond to a few things there, unpack that.

i don't disagree with most of what you just said except that they didn't steal the presidential election. it's just too hard. i mean, seriously, think about this for a second. do you really think joe biden master minded a nationwide conspiracy to steal votes in six different states to win the presidency? joe biden couldn't master mind a one car funeral let alone master mind that type of oranges and have it be unfound. now, yes, our liberals using the educational system in a way it try to indoctrinate our children into a thought process? absolutely, it's happening. and that's a different fight anthes a fight we should have. mail-in ballots, look, i support the georgia election law, i support the texas election law, because i will tell you a quick story. this whole idea not having to

show i.d. when you go to vote and somehow asked to show i.d. is discriminatory, i went to new york city eight or nine weeks ago. and i walk into an office building in new york city to go to a meeting. i walk up to the security guard, he says governor, oh, it's so amazing to see you, i'm such a big fan. >> thank you. >> can i come around and take a picture? >> sure, he comes around the security desk gets his phone all we take a selfie. he prints out my visitor pass and can you sign the visitor pass for me? can i have your autograph? absolutely, sure, sign it, and he goes back in the desk, he says, can i see your i.d.? [laughter] >> and i said, all right, al. you're convinced enough that i'm me that you took a picture with me, and you had me give you an auto graph and you need

to see my i.d. he said it's the rules. and i went in my wallet and got my driver's license, and gave it to him. if i have to do to enter an office building in manhattan to go to a meeting. why shouldn't i have to show the people in the firehouse my driver's license when i come to vote? i'm a bad example because i walk in here and if they don't know me it's a problem, right? but i think everybody should have to show an i.d. i think one of the things i did when i was governor is why you should be less concerned about the voter rolls in this state i mandated and had the attorney general mandate the counties update the rote voter rolls. we knocked a lot of dead people off the voter rolls. a lot of people who moved off the voter rolls during my eight years as governor. now, it's got to be a constant process because people die all the time and people move all the time. but the voter rolls of new jersey are in much better shape

than they were before. last thing on mail-in ballots, he think they are going to continue to be a factor and i don't want republicans complang about it anymore. we've got to get as good at it as they are. it's not that hard. now what they do. they send out the ballot, then they send the piece of mail saying, hey, you've got your ballot, here is how you return it, and then, they call four or five times, and say, hey did you fill out your ballot yet? fill out the ballot yet? and then they text you and then they e-mail you, and it's not turnout anymore, it's drag out. they drag those votes out of those houses. there's no reason we can't do that. there is no reason. we have the availability to the same technology as the rest, only makes it a little bit harder is the door-to-door portion of it because door-to-door is harder than

door-to-door in jersey city. i've done both and mendon is much harder, so that part of it we're always going to be in a disadvantage, our voters tend to be in more suburban and rural areas. i was an an event. a week before election, for at fundraiser, and a woman raised her head and asked about bill on 101.5, what are we going to do to combat him. i looked at him. worried about joe on 101.5, the election next tuesday because we don't know how to do mail-in balloting and they do. and it turned out six days later that i was exactly right. on the machine, jackson was elected governor, we have the mail-in vote he loses by 75,000

votes. do i think the election was stolen from jack? i don't and neither does jack. i've spoken to him about it and he doesn't. but the bigger point on your point is we've got a bunch of things we have to do and i talk about it in the book, for us to continue to be a competitive, viable party. and moaning and complaining and looking in the rearview mirror at past elections, never helps you win the next one ever. voters don't want to hear about that stuff. that's not why they vote for you. the last story i'll tell you on that when i was running for election in 2013 right after sandy, we had rebuilt the boardwalk in asbury park so we rebuilt it in five months and i'm taking a victory lap and running for reelection walking on the boardwalk. the guy says hey, governor, you're running for reelection, yeah. why should i vote for you. >> look at this boardwalk.

>> that's what i got for voting for you last time. what do i get voting for you next time. the voters in the main think about tomorrow, not about yesterday. and that's a clue, that shows we're a hopeful country and we think that tomorrow can be better than yesterday and we don't want to dwell on yesterday we look to tomorrow. our party has got to stop doing that. stop the grievance, at complaining. fight for voter i.d. fight for better mail-in ballots and fight to clean up the voter rolls, our ideas versus their ideas, i feel like we'll do okay. by the way, in an election where he lost at the top by three points, we picked up six seats in the assembly and a seat in the senate and a lot of local seats, except for the top of the ticket, election day was very good for republicans across this state and i think sets a clear message not to

phil murphy, but to legislative democrats who you watch, are going to be much, much more reluctant to do what he wants them to do because they're all back up for election in 2023 with a new map. and that's the last thing, redistricting and something very difficult and we've got a map right now, my wife is trying to tell me to stop. but we've got a map right now when i got reelected in 2013, i got 60% of the vote statewide and we didn't pick up one seat in the legislature. if that's not a gerrymandered map when the top of the ticket gets 60% of the vote and we don't win one vote underneath that will tell you everything you need and hopefully renegotiating another map and we could be in control of the legislature. >> i always like to say one last question which i'll say to you one last question, but it has to be a short answer. >> all right. well. >> okay. >> we'll see, i might take

two-. >> (laughter) >> just to show people here that you don't run anything. >> i know, i definitely don't. every once in a while. >> then two short answers. >> there's two guys there, two short answers. >> three guys, but make them short answers. >> i'll make it a straightforward question, too. nice to see you governor and mrs. christie. looking forward as we've talking about, mernls midterms and even 24. how does the party unite and you have a section of the party would obviously like to see a new face in 24 and sooner and another section still very much likes president biden. is the glen youngkin model good for this. >> a short answer, two things, first, never forget the other side unites us like we could

never unite ourselves. and by the way, same with the democrats. donald trump united the democrats more than the democrats have been united in my lifetime. so remember, part of this process is, oh, my god, what are they doing? we have to stop them. and republicans are willing to put down some of their differences in order to stop that. the second piece is that, we've got to start talking about the things that voters care about. elections aren't about what the candidate thinks is important, they're about what the voters think are important and what that candidate thinks about what the voters think is important. so part of what we need to do is get ourselves back into that mode of thinking and we haven't been. we've been yelling and complaining and screaming about things that most the voters didn't care about and they sent

us a clear message, not once, but twice, in 18 and in 20. so, we need to listen. thank you. >> sure. >> i'll try to make it fairly quick. >> okay. >> you know, needless to say, having been a public figure, i think everyone was long aware of president trump's foibles and personality quirks and whatnot. one thing that i think has made people loyal to him is the fact that he came in saying i will do certain things and by and large, he did them. and i would say that as someone who's typically, generally voted republican, i've often been disappointed by my party in terms of failure to keep promises made during a campaign. so you know, too often we're talked to, we will do this and then nothing is done. and except for the fact that, you know, if you look at trump, he made a--

he fixed a skating rink in new york after six years of nonsense. he built a golf club on a dump in a short period of time. he started building a wall when no wall was ever built. he moved the embassy in israel to the capital of israel when it had been said this will happen, this will happen. so you know, we're looking, if somebody's going to be a more acceptable alternative to the foibles and personality problems, then we though want somebody who is still going to do what he says. >> yeah. >> i don't know why our party has often disappointed us. >> well, if you talk to democrats they'll say the same thing. and there will be a bunch of democrats who will say that as well. i don't think it's unique to our party. but what i will say is look in the main, i agreed with the

things president trump tried to do. there are some things that we differed, but usually not significant. here is where i part company with him. you can't stand up behind the shield of the president of the united states in the east room of the white house at 2:30 a.m. on election night and tell the american people that the election was stolen and not present any evidence to support that. the words of the president of the united states matter more than the words of a new york real estate developer. he continues to talk like he was a real estate new york developer when he was the president of the united states and the american people want to believe what the president tells them. any president. whether you voted for him or not, you want to believe what he says. it would have been like barack obama standing up that night in april of 2012 and saying, osama bin laden is dead and he

wasn't. what would we have thought at that moment? that's something of enormous gravity to the american people like an election, after what bin laden did to this country, the idea that someone would say that he had been killed when he wasn't would have been something that we would never accept in the president. and saying an election was stolen and not presenting any evidence to back it up and here we are 13 months later and he's saying the same thing. to me, that creates a huge credibility problem that diminishes what you just talked about. and i said this to the president the saturday after the election, said if you don't either present the evidence that it was stolen now, or concede the election, going to diminish your legacy in a way that will damage you personally and damage the party for a long

time. and so i agree with you, that there are many things he said he would do, that he got done. there were a number of things he said he would do that he didn't get done, but you can say that about anybody in office. election night to me was a line that made it impossible for me to say that's okay because it's just not and we all get into this business knowing that we could win or lose. and sometimes you think it isn't fair. i've lost elections i felt weren't fair, but that's the deal. you stand up like a adult and you say i don't think that was fair, but the votes have been counted, the people have spoken, and i'll live to fight another day. and that's where i think the divide is now and that was something that was not necessary to do. and not welcoming the bidens to

the white house inaugural morning and not going to the inauguration. look, do you think that hillary clinton wanted to be sitting there on january of 2017 at donald trump's inaugural? do you think that al gore wanted to sit there in 2001 at george bush's inaugural? you know, do you think that george bush 41 wanted to be sitting there at bill clinton's inaugural? i am confident they would have rather had elective root canal than sitting there and they went not only did they go, they welcomed the victor to the white house and said, this is the way we do it in this country. it's a peaceful transfer of power where the vanquished congratulate the victor and he

didn't do any of that. and you can say, al gore fought like crazy against george w. bush for 34 days all the way to the supreme court. and even though al gore lost 5-4, he didn't say hell with this, i'm not listening to the supreme court, i'm not moving out of the observatory, i'm still the vice-president. he went out and conceded and welcomed bush to the naval observatory and showed the country this is the way we operate, and that's the way we operated for the last 250 years and i think that's one that the president should have done much differently. >> thanks, governor. big support supporter, my wife and i drove up from the shore to be here glad we did. >> thank you. >> love to see you as our candidate 2024, going back how your own constituents felt about trump and not wanting to

hear that voice. i worked for a company that's based in the midwest and spend a lot of time out there. there's a lot of good right-thinking people out there. when it comes to new yorkers or anybody from the northeast, they're like we really don't get them. we don't want to-- and we talk too fast, don't give them a chance to hear what they're saying and took a chance on trump and they feel they got burned. how would somebody like you overcome what's become a bias against the northeast, thanks to donald? >> i would say to you that the they did take a chance on trump in parts of the midwest and other places they didn't. i could tell you you know, when i was in iowa and spent a decent amount of time there in 2015, there's definitely, you've got to come up hill a little bit if you come from the northeast and you have a vowel at the end of your name. gets a little tough. [laughter] >> but i think that, you know,

for any of us our own authenticity has to be what we rely upon. you know, there are plenty of people, because believe me, i see social media, there are plenty of people that don't like me, that's okay, now? that's their right. but even the people who don't like me, most of them, don't call me a phony. they have gotten to know me and don't like me. okay? [laughter] >> that's fine. that's their call. that's politics. but i think that we can't back away from authenticity and i think, quite frankly, one of the reasons that trump got elected was because people said, he's not saying it the way i like to say it, but, man, i think he means it and i think that's who he is, and as a result, some people will

willing to take a chance on him based upon that authenticity. i think the single most important thing in a candidate is authenticity and you could tell when they're not. you know, you look at the certain candidates, i ran against a bunch of them in 2016 and look at them and go, you don't have a chance. they're sitting there trying to think of what the answer should be and trying to figure out what it is you want to hear and give it back to you. and the american people have proven themselves in the main to be a lot smarter than that. the only way to overcome any bias, northeastern bias against a southern candidate, you know, no doubt that exists. talk about a weird accent, you know, they think we have one. look at them. [laughter] >> but there's always going to be that bias, i think, certain candidates overcome that with their approach, their personality, their authenticity and that's what i said. and i know i said only three

and then this woman stood up. >> what's up with that. >> and i'm not telling her to sit down and i'm leaving. [laughter]. >> all right. >> no chance. >> i'll support that. >> and if i listen to this woman to stay not in trouble with that one. >> i admire you, chris and happy to be here today. i'm a moderate i would say i'm pretty much an independent kind of person and i did vote for biden i will say, i think that people need to understand biden was a place holder, he was a viable candidate to trump. that was in, it wasn't because people were so in love with biden and that's why biden is struggling now, he's lost the independents and gone way over to the left. what the hell are you doing, truly, that's how a lot of us are feeling. >> i'm so glad that c-span is here to see it. >> i'm glad to say it, i feel even the majority of biden voters are feeling that way,

but my question to you is, you, i think, at this point represent minority to some extent of your party. someone that's standing up to the election conspiracies and so forth. i'm wondering if donald trump and his minions, so to speak, starts going after you. >> they have. >> and what are you going to do, how are you going to react? i'd much rather see you on the ballot than-- >> well, thank you, look, i'll react like-- you all have watched me for a long time. mark county longer than new jersey and new jersey longer than the country. i'll give you-- the president attacked me a week or so ago. >> yeah. >> and talked about my approval rating when i left new jersey, the governorship. look, my approval rating was bad enough when i left and he made it worse. he lied about it to make it worse. i thought to myself why didn't you just tell the truth? and it was bad when i left so you could have just used the real number and it would have been terrible. and my response to him was,

well, i don't know, donald, when i ran for reelection, i got 60% of the vote. when you ran you lost to joe biden. that's what i'll do, i mean, look, donald trump has never gotten in a fight with me. i believe because he knows i know how to fight back. he fights in the main with people who can't fight back. and you'll notice if you remember back in the 16 race i was like one of the only guys or women on stage that didn't get a nickname. energy jeb, little marco, lying ted, crazy john. you know, they all got names, i didn't get one. and i'm susceptible to any number of nicknames that he clearly could have thought of and let me say something about what you said about your vote for biden. you know, i said this to trump in 2017, mary pat was there, we

went for lunch with the president on valentine's day, 2017. he had been in office three weeks. and he called and invited us to come down and have lunch with him. it wasn't exactly my idea of valentine's day, but i got to bring mary pat with me. >> he got to bring me. >> he it was okay. >> and he said to me like look around, can you believe i'm here and showing you the oval office, yeah, sure, you won and we sat down to talk about it at lunch and i said to him, remember something, you didn't win this election, she lost it. and i said, now, mr. president, it doesn't matter because your hand was on the bible on january 20th, you're sleeping upstairs, you're sitening this office, it doesn't matter, but now you need to make the next four years about you, because you'll be the one judged four years from now, and the same thing happened to me and when i won in '09, i didn't win, john

corzine loss lost. i'm not a big enough ego maniac to think oh, my god, i want chris christie. they went oh, my god, they don't want corzine anymore, is this guy reasonable? and i, like biden, was someone that wasn't rejected and by the way, that's the way trump got elected in 16 in my opinion. hillary clinton, and this is demonstrated by the polling data on election day, was the singlemost unpopular presidential candidate on election day in american history. by the way, the second most unpopular presidential candidate on election day in american history was donald trump, but a little better than her. and so he won. now when i told him that, mary pat will tell you, he got so

pissed, i won, i won in a landslide, that's outrageous, she didn't lose, i beat her. >> i'm like, look, you can think that, but it's just not true. and you shouldn't be upset about it, don't get upset. i said like i felt the same way, i know that corzine lost, i didn't win, but what i did, mr. president, was every day i went to my campaign manager the day after the election in '09 # because we won with 48 1/2% of the vote in a three-way race and i looked at him and i said every day from here on out, your job is to figure out how we build that coalition, what i need to do to convince as many of the 51 1/2% of the people who didn't vote for me to vote for me next time. if donald trump had gone that, he'd still be in the white house today. instead, what he did, was decide to just--

when that happens in a close election, and don't bring the country together, you wind up going down and you're right, again, that's exactly what's happening with joe biden right now. joe biden promised to be a uniter and to bring the country together and return it to normalcy, he comes in and he goes way left to the base of hits party, the exact same mistake that trump made, and doesn't try to bring the country together and bring more people in. remember in 2013 when i got reelected, i got 51% of the latino vote, i got 29% of the african-american vote, four years earlier, i had gotten 11% of the african-american vote and 33% of the latino vote. that didn't happen by miracle. because we worked every day to reach out to those folks who

didn't vote for us, asked them why, i tried to deal with the issues they were concerned about. so, i absolutely agree with you, independents have abandoned biden for the moment because biden abandoned them first. they didn't leave him, he left them. you're standing in the middle of the country going, where the hell did joe biden go? he's all the way over there with elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. the democratic party rejected elizabeth warren and bernie sanders, and kamala harris because they were too liberal. they nominated the 78-year-old guy for two reasons. he was in the middle and he wanted to beat trump and they knew the other ones couldn't. so i don't understand why this is so complicated. i really don't. and maybe i'm just getting too old. and i've seen too much, but it's pretty simple how to try to govern and win in this

country. and winning is hardest power. once you get there, whether it's the power of the governorship or power of the presidency, you have the ability to be able to bring people together. you have to decide to do it and i'm disappointed that trump didn't. i'm disappointed that biden didn't. and i think that the american people send a pretty clear signal in 2020 they're probably going to have to send it again in 2024, that we want someone who is going to bring the country together. we're tired of being divided. we're tired of not being able to go to 0 cocktail party and have a conversation about politics. we're tired of people yelling at us because we have a bumper sticker on our car. we're tired of people giving us a hard time because of what we believe. and when i grew up in politics that wasn't the way it was. and i think we can bring it

back. this book is an effort to start with my own party. it's easy for me to lecture democrats. >> why don't you run as an independent? obviously, you could probably win, seriously, let the side going to the side. the middle candidate is going to win. >> i'm sorry, what you need to do as a republican, start with your own party. and start with the talking to them about these truths. and look, either i'll convince people or i won't, but that's what this business is all about. and used to say when i with a-- i was governor and the press would say the poll says this, and my job is to change the pollings not to follow the follows. if you're a persuasive leader, your job is to change polls, know the to follow them. so, i hope that that's what this book starts to do. i know this much, it started a

conversation. rupert murdoch gave a speech three days later at newscorp where he said, donald trump isn't wrong, the election wasn't stolen, we have to stop talking about it and fight for the future and stop worrying about the past. if trump doesn't stop talking about it, then he can't be a part of the future. >> if the head of fox news is saying that we might be getting someplace. >> that's why i started the book and started the conversation. i'm glad you were the last question and that's a great place to end. i want to say one thing other than thanking my wife not only for tonight, but for putting up with me for 35 years. this place is really special to us. we've been here 30 years and we've been made to feel welcome here for all 30 years that we've been here, when we were brand new, you know, residents with no children and nobody knew who we were, to being a

free holder and then seeing the governor that had the suv's idling outside of every place for eight years all around town with the guys in the wires in their ears. for that time you live in the safest town in new jersey, i guarantee you that. there's no problem there. you definitely lived in the safest place, but through all of those ups and downs, now, there were times that were difficult. and when they are difficult times in public life and you come home, you want to not have to worry about going out at home. and i can tell you that, when things were great, everybody here was great, too. but when things weren't great, everybody here was great, too, even when they disagreed with me, they did it in a way that was respectful of the fact that we're one of you and so, you know, we thank you for that because you provided us a community to raise all four of

our children, in a way that we wanted to and when they were in the public spotlight, you made it better, not worse. you didn't make them feel different. and that, on the soccer field, on the little league fields or on the football field, you guys made them feel like they were just four more kids in mendon and that made our lives a lot easier so thank you for coming tonight and thank you for all of that. [applause] >> thank you, governor. thank you, governor, thank you america, and another beautiful evening. >> c-span's weekly podcast brings you over 40 years of audio recordings from our video library, comparing the events of the past to today. >> in this episode, cat

threaten katharine graham, brought her great corporate success and enormous success she has today. >> let's be honest, great leadership, great leadership is a rare and elusive quality. composed as it with so many attributes that must come together at the same time. intelligence, courage, high standards, personal presence, the ability to communicate, among others. >> you can find the weekly on c-span now our free mobile video app, or wherever you get your podcasts. >> there are a lot of places to get political information, but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you're from or where you stand on the issue, c-span is america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word for

word. if it happens here or here or here or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span. powered by cable. >> the u.s. senate gavels in today at noon eastern. senators will debate and vote on finland and sweden's request to join n.a.t.o. last night 86-11 to provide health care to veterans who were exposed to toxins in the military service, that bill will be signed by the president's desk. ranking member jerry moran and jon tester spoke on the senate floor about that bill. >> in just a few minutes, in fact, maybe i should say finally, in just a few minutes, the senate will vote once again on the sergeant first heath robinson's honoring the