>> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories, and on sundays booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 come from these television companies and more including midco. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> midco, , along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. >> now about tennis program, are you ready? okay, great. so too many people, chris christie is known as governor,

abc news analyst, , national spokesperson and also "new york times" best-selling author. mary pat christie also has a agreed that extends beyond our borders heree in midland townshp having been successful career on wall street as well as holding the title of first lady and doing a number of programs across the state and was always very well received. writing these parts they are simply friends, family, neighbors and fellow coaches. so we are pleased to have them in our community. as a matter fact it was just three years ago, almost three years ago when chris christie's first book came out, let me finish, that he was gracious and at aha fundraiser on our behalf. we held that a crossed out at the high school and that was actually a sold-out event on a very crisp figure eating. i am pleased to say with a second book when chris was agreeable to do a fundraiser we jump for joyoy with it and mysef

and my fellow board members and a new we are again. hope that eating for use going tonight are sellouts so you could say that tonight is probablyly as tough ticket as a chris could to is probably tough the ticket as hamilton on broadway. mary pat will moderate. chris will try to answer the question, maybe try to get around the questions we don't know yet and democrats of q&a. there's a mic writer and the center for everyone to jump up and ask the questions, 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 he was much less receptive in 2020 >> living on a different topic but that some people talked about is all these conspiracy theories. talk to this audience and the

way you do so well about where the proof is obviously donald trump lost the election but give specifics about suburban women and where he lost votes and gain votes in the cities. >> he 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 jobs, two jobs ago, not my last job i try not to write like the governor. i tried to like right like the united states attorney. i had to prove in court what would i do because that's what i would do to all of you is if youhave any doubts about this , i want to address those issues, lay out the facts and then let you draw your own conclusions. but obviously i'm taking it from the perspective of

ateither or the evidence to support as i did the attorney about bringing a case . obviously the evidence supports what i'm bringing . so just a few things. one of the theories is the election was stolen from him in pennsylvania, in philadelphia and in michigan and detroit. the box of balance showed up in the middle of the night in detroit, in philadelphia they were filling out ballots they are that no one was accounting for. there were more ballots than people registered to vote. you've heard all these things. we go through hawhat the registration numbers are in pennsylvania and how there are fewer people who voted and actually registered to vote. we look at philadelphia. in philadelphia donald trump got three percent more of the vote in 2020 than he did in 2016. and the city of philadelphia and joe e biden one percent

less in philadelphia than hillary clinton did. i would argue that's a very unsuccessfulsteel job when you let the guy you're trying to steal from three percent more and the guy you're trying to steal for get one percent less . so they didn't steal it. the other thing is about pennsylvania is wait a second . when i went to bed on trump was winning pennsylvania by 700,000 votes and then i wake up and he's losing by 80,000 votes. they stole it. number 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 in 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 one ohio nine points. by the same pennsylvania theory, trump stole ohio from biden. number here's what happened. in ohio theycounted the mail-in ballots first . the mail-in ballots were overwhelmingly across the country and insome places 70 to 75 percent democrat . for two reasons. one, democrats generally are more fearful of covid than other people so they were more fearful to go up to the polling place and vote in person. secondly, donald trump said all summer and all fall mail-in ballots are rigged. don't trust mail-in ballots, float on election day. so republican voters listen to the leader of theparty and they didn't vote by mail . they voted at the machines

that day so in ohio they had all the mail in voters first. biden was up by sevenpoints . we're watching on abc so we didn't know which way they were doing it until we started askingquestions . how did joe biden win in ohio by seven? then they counted d machine votes in ohio it was60 points away . trump went from down 7 to 9. pennsylvania it was the exact opposite. pennsylvania they decided to count the machine votes first and donald trump is up by 700,000 votes. then they nncounted mail-in votes and he loses by 80. a very similar swing in numbers and percentage that goes in trump's favor. lastly, in pennsylvania something was in stark relief that happened across the country is why donald trump

was the first republican presidential candidate to lose large counts. for serving counties outside philadelphia. montgomery county, is it montgomery? in 2016 versus 2020, donald trump lost those four counties by 104,000 more votes to joe biden that he lost to hillary clinton. he lost both times but lost quite 104,000 votes more suin those four suburban counties. so if you need to know why donald trump lost pennsylvania he lost pennsylvania for the same reason he lost. white educated suburban voters who gave him a chance

in 2016 largely abandoned him in 2020. and i am sure in this town and your friends across the county and integrated presented by women than men, both women and men serving the white educated voted far less for trump in 2020 than he did in 2016. >> that we lost in michigan, that's where you lost in wisconsin. over and over again in the suburbs outside milwaukee, outside detroit, outside philadelphia who had voted for him in 2015 and did not and i talk about one anecdotal story in the book with a woman who shall remain nameless who had been a volunteer for both my

gubernatorial campaign and she saw me the day before the election. she said governor, what's going to happen tomorrow and i said look, i think it's a lot closer than people think but i think biden isgoing to win . she looked down at her shoes and started shaking her head. i know you're disappointed, i'm sorry. she said no, i votedfor biden . and i looked at her and said you voted for biden?why? she said governor, i couldn't listen to thatvoice for another four years . so part of what we need to understand and this is why it's been difficult for donald trump to acceptbecause it was not a rejection of policy . it was a rejection of his person by a group of voters that had been with him four years earlier and i can tell you something, personal

winning is much better. losing is ly, intensely personal.politics is different than sports. sports you can have a good day or bad day. sometimesyou win, sometimes the other person is better . it doesn't mean that your rejecting that that day the other guywas better . and in politics, they looked at you and then look to the other person and went i'll take them. i don't want you. it is, i can tell you from having felt it. it's intensely personal. so when people wonder why donald trump lost, accepting in part it's because he knows what i just said is true. it was a personal rejection and we go through all the

other, i give you an example but there's a number of other arizona, all these different, georgia. >> that's a good segue into what will be my last question for you and then we will take questions from the audience but tell us your views that right now there's an effort in the legislature to federalize voting rights and voting's systems. can youtell us your view on federalizing that , voting loss and what you would do. >> in congress they want to federalize all the rules around voting. i have to tell you you don't want to live in my district. each state is different. how we could ever think of voting rules that would be good for wyoming would begood for new jersey . when wyoming is the least

densely populated state in america and the most densely populated in america. the challenges that we face in voting, the accommodations we have to make art different. second, .the constitution i think is clear on this. that these decisions are supposed to be made by each individual state and you know, i go back to the federal government, what could possibly go wrong? i mean, imagine that the federal government could be in charge of counting all the votes. so instead of having all the really great people that we have in the white house when we go there, as volunteers, paid a little bit not nearly as much as they should help us run it. imagine those people all get in and federal employees come in. i don't think so.

so what we need to do is like look at what happened how long it took to count the votes. here's why. usuallyyou have 10 or 12,000 paper ballots . and every other time it's all the machines. this time, we had a huge multiple, 200,000 paperback ballots. they hadthe same number of machines to count the paper ballots . because they couldn't get ready that quickly. they didn't know covid comes in march 2020. you can order those machines f to get them even if youwanted to . so one of the things i think that all this in this state in particular given the number of voters we have were all across the country need to do is not assume we're going to go back in 2022 or 2024 two of very small amount of mail in balance.

i think k some people have gotten used to that. they like it. it's convenient for them. and i think we're going to have a lot more mail in voting over time we better get more machines. to count these votes because the other reason why we have so many conspiracy theory is the longer it takesfor us to tell you one the more you're wondering what the hell are they up to who's messing around with this ? and i talk about that a little bit in the book that it's a natural american thing . it goes all the way backto the founding of the country . there's conspiracy theories about politics throughout our founding and that's what happens in a free society where people get to express itheir opinions. their opinions don't have to be right, they just have to be opinions and they get to express them and i'llalways remember what brendan byrne used to say. i had a lot of fun with governor vern and i miss him . he's one of the funniest people i've ever met and one

of the lines use all the time was i've made my wife promised that when i die that she'll bury me in my county so i can remainactive 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. they did. and by the way they happened in new jersey a month ago. and they happened in new jersey when i ran in 09. and in 13. it happens all the time. the question is where there are enough irregularities to change the results of the election and anyone state let alone the five states that would have been necessary to change the result of the election and that i think we proven the book is just not possible. so you know, that's i think an important thing to remember and if you think onyou don't trust the county clerk in morris county to count the vote, weight till some

federal bureaucrats is counting your vote. forget it. conspiracy theories will be trouble and quadruple. at least we know who and is and if and is messing around we can kick her out you're not going to be able to get rid of the federal bureaucrats in charge of the election process . >> thank you for explaining back andemphasizing it . if anyone has questions we can move to o the audience. >> there's a microphone in the middle. and i think we need to use the microphone not because i can't hear you without it that because the tv guys are here tonight . >> thank you. my question is ifthe binding administration continues to have had wind you think the mainstream media will turn against him ?>> i'll say this. not completely against him, number because look, the mainstream media in this country is slanted towards

the left . there can be any question about that anymore. in fact,they're almost playing it up . watch this, it's almost never not 3 to 1. when i'm doing that roundtable on abc. it's almost always 3 to 1. every once in a while they run a poor republican in there to sit with me but most of the time it's 3 to 1. and that's even on one of the networks. if you go to the news networks they revel in their slant. ghcnn and msnbc are reveling in a leftward slant. they think that it's profitable for them and fox revels in a rightward slant. 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 worldswe're living in right now. two different ways to look at issues . and most of the time you're

going to come back to to the way you think about things but that's why if you look at the bottom of our driveway and our kid teases us endlessly about this that we get actual iknewspapers. our kids are like, are you kidding? what are you getting a newspaper for, youcan go on your phone but we still get them and if you look at the bottom of ourdriveway , there's three newspapers every day. the wall street journal , to give us the conservative side s of things. new york times so i know what the enemy isthinking and the new york post . so i think you should get a taste of the same thing with mainstream media on tvas well . i painfully watch, i don't watch this every night but when i do watch i go back and forth between, i can't watch

msnbc i have to be honest. i can't. it's too much for me but i'll go back and forth between cnn and fox. i want to see how whatever the big stories of the day are how they cover them differently and whatthey're going to five is they cover them and emphasize which stories . so there will be a day like let's say there's a story on wall street and there's a big story in washington dc. cnn will cover the washington dc story and they will cover it with nothing but democratic members of the house and senate and democratic pundits commenting on. fox news won't cover the washington story unless it's really big. they won't cover the wall street story either. they'll cover immigration. and there will be stories about immigration and the border and they will get to those stories secondly and

thirdly so everybody is htaking a different approach and i think it's educational to watch all of it. as muchof it 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. they think it's because that's what we're hearing and the news there watching so i don't have any problem with them playing it down the middle . >> i happen to think one of the biggest failings if not the biggest failing of the country is inner-city public schools. 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 schools thereat , why hasn't taken hold in the populations who live there to get behind school choice,school vouchers, charter schools ? because the party they're voting for his entrenched and absolutely not supportive of that and the cycle is iperpetuated and it never gets

better. i can't understand why that population hasn't moved to the school choice argument, to the charter school argument which is you know, can't be reported by the other party. >> i would say there's two reasons. the first one is folks in the inner cities have gotten into the habit ofvoting democrat . and they just have a hard time breaking the habit. unless .2, republicans progressively campaign there and make the argument. iwould tell you i think in the main our party has done a lousy job . i can make thatargument . republicans many of them tend to be uncomfortable going into those communities and making those arguments. and i think it's foolhardy. if you look at what happened

with me in 2013 after four years of arguing hard that public education was failing children and arguing why and offeringmore charter schools than the governor ever had and all of that, what happened ? we got more votes in newark and irvington, jersey city. we want bay on, we won union city. we had 62 percent of the vote in union city new jersey in 2013. what i tried to argue to republicans across the country is you got to go to places your uncomfortable in and go to those places making the arguments that you know that that group of voters needs to hear. and to me you're right that the education issue and virginia just showed this. the education issue will come across parties. parents care most about their children.

they want their children to get a good education. and i will tell you the biggest supporters i have in 2013 in the cities were the pastors of most of the major churches. in places like newark and camden and trenton and patterson. of all the denominations including imams in muslim mosques in places like patterson and camden because they say to me when i was governor we are tired of seeing the children who sit in our views every sunday constantly be failed by this public school system. now, the reason that it doesn't take hold 2.3 is that the teachers unions across the country spent an in rbitant amount of money making sure that it doesn't. so like i hear now and i hear our current governor touting that we have the best schools

in america. okay. for some kids. and he's the 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 dextraordinary. and i want to end it on a more upbeat funny note. in 2010, the fall of 27 we were inthe midst of the first big fight with the teachers union . all four children were one of the suvs going someplace, i

don't remember where but we were on the turnpike and we've gotten through, we got off the exit. where 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. and it was an awful picture of me. at that time, our son patrick who for those of you here who know our family our son patrick who is definitely the drink that serves the in our house, he was 10 years old at the time. ididn't know this . i saw it and i was hoping they didn'tsee it . patrick goes dad, he goes your people have to get better pictures of you. and i said patrick, did you read what the billboard said? those are not my people. and he goes i don't knowdad, it was a really bad picture . that's another reason it

happens as well. >> hi governor christie. you brought up governor burns in hudson county so i'm compelled to the story. that goes back to 1985 when brendan byrne and ed brought her were supporting a democratic candidate for senator . and he happened to have a fundraising in new jersey at the time and brendan byrne gets up and looks at bradley and he says you know, i don't understand why you have 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 . >> i had a similar experience with my old job. >> on another note i wanted to ask you about october 22 in 2020 and 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. namely that trump obviously tested positive for covid and there are all sorts of supporters sitting inthose chairs, yourself included . how do you feel that at the time which he knew that he had the coronavirus, how do you feel about trump now, a gentleman who you supported for president in terms of his loyalty to his closest associates and putting them essentially in peril as a result of this subsequent test that he had for testing positive. >>i'll say a few things about that . just to gentlycorrect the record a little bit . my understanding is that he tested positive the next day.

for 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 dayupbefore everybody who wassitting there , i don't believe by the way that event was a super spreader event . 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 the debate. 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, there were seven of us of us. inow, it is disturbing to me to have heard for the first time a day or two ago and mark meadows book that the president tested positive

prior to him sitting closer than i am to you for four days. and preparing us for the debates. and you know, there's a story in the book about after i got put in the hospital, he was in the hospital as well and he called me and in this story makes much more sense to me than it did anytime after two days ago. he called me and said how are you doing and i said not well which is really bad and you sound bad to. he goes into his normal subject. do you believe two tough guys like us got this thing? we're so tough. how could this have gotten us? we arelike the two toughest guys in america . and i don't understand it . i don't know either mister president. he then got to the point of the call. he said how do you think you

got it? i said i don't know mister president but i said i'm confident i got it at the white house since six of the seven of us got it who knows who patient zero was. obviously i got it at the white house. he then said to me you're not going to blame it on me, are you? and i said why when i blame it on you? i don't know that you're the one who gave it to me. it happened in that room but i don't know, you are sick too. so you're not going to tell the press i gave it to you? i wouldn't say that since 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 bit suspicious because every one of us beside him that 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 esand that's where the medical unit is. you go intothe medical unit, they swab you . we sat there for 15 minutes, they got the results of the test and if you are negative you are authorized to go to the west wing so i was always a little bit suspicious as to whether one of us got a false positive, false-negative rwriter or whether it was him because he was the only one we didn't know whether he was getting tested every day or not. you wouldn't know. so i mean, look. for me especially how bad my experience with it was. and in the intensive care unit for seven days and a couple moments really feeling like it was going to go the wrongway . you know, finding that out a couple days ago if in fact

what meadows says is true because he tried to hedging a little bit in the book and he says he got a negative test b after that and so they weren't sure but at a minimum , what we were. everybody in that room. it was me, steffi and, kelly and conway, stephen miller. hope takes and the other miller. i said stephen, it's the other miller. jason millerotwho was the only one that didn't get . but the rest of us were all owed to be told that. i will tell you this we all would have worn masks if we were. we didn't wear masks because we said we're getting tested every day and that's why i wasn't wearing a mask is every person eating at that event all had been tested before they came in . but what i said afterwards and whatever the president

did, he's got to live with his own conscience. and i'm not going to be able to impose guilt onto him. he's either going to feel it or not about what he did if hein fact was positive . but what i will tell you is that for me, i said this after i got out of the hospital. it was amistake for me not to wear the mask . i became convinced that i was in a safe zone because all of us have been tested and i was wrong. now i probably know why i was wrong. i didn't know that but regardless i should have worn masks whole time, it just would dhave been an extra layer of safety for me and that's why i said the stuff i said afterwards but as you can imagine when maryand i saw that pop up on our phones earlier this week , early in the morning we had an interesting reaction. >> thank you thank you

governor for the book. as you mentioned the irregularities in the auction that you agreed on the regularities, don't you believe the democratic party double up the system and that they are implementing it for the town the control and then mail in balance, that they're using the system and somehow we definitely have to be concerned about the same happened to donald trump, the same happened in the election here. i know certain areas that are highly controlled by the democratic people. they use machinery and they will do all the things to implement mail in voting . >> so doing that and also using the mmachine especially system and then they graduate, they become 90

percent of them democratic. so it's the system, it's corruption and if we do not stand up against all republicans and say it doesn't exist as much as we need to worry about, i'm feeling that it's actually gotten to that point. eventually we're probably going to get an elector and it has been happening. you got elected, did your job into terms but you see the assembly and senate, they know how to win.they have that recipe. >> let me respond to a few things there and unpacked 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. seriously, think about this . you really think joe biden masterminded a nationwide conspiracy to steal votes in six different states? biden masterminded a one car funeral.

let alone masterminded that type of operation and have it be on found. yes, our or liberals using the education system in a way to try to indoctrinate our children into certain thought processes? absolutely, it's happening. that's a different fight. that's afight we should have . mailing balance, look. i support the georgia election law. i support the texas election law. i'll tell you a quick story. this whole eidea about on every show i did when you go to vote that somehow the asked to show id is discriminatory. i went to new york city eight or nine weeks ago. and i walked into an office building in new york city. go to a meeting. i walk up to a security guard. he says governor, it's so

great to see you. i'm such a big fan. can i come around and take a picture? sure . gets his phone out, he takes a selfie. he prints out my visitor pass. can you smile and into the visitorpass for me, can i have yourautograph ? sure . can i see your id? i looked at him and i said all right. you're convinced enough that i'm me that you took a picture with me and you had me give you an autographed but you still want to see my id. he said i'm sorry, it's the rules. okay, went in my wallet, got my driverslicense and gave it to him . if i have to do that to enter an office building in manhattan, why shouldn't i have to show the people in the firehouse my drivers' license when i go to vote? i'm a bad example because i walked in here and if they

don't know me it's a problem. but i think oeverybody should have to showan id . i think one of the things i did when i was governor is why you should be less concerned about the voter rolls in the state. i mandated the counties update their voter rolls. we not 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. it's got to be a constant process because people die all the e time people move all the time the voter rolls in new jersey in much better shape thanthey were before . lastly on mailing balance. i think they're going to continue to be a factor. and i don'twant republicans complaining about it anymore. we've got to get as good as they are . t it's not that hard. you know what they do, they masend out without then they send a piece of mail saying

you got your ballot. here's how youreturn it . and they call for a five times. did you get your ballot yet? then they text you. then theemail you . 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's no reason. we have technology and all the rest and it only makes it a little bit harder. because door-to-door it was a little harder in jersey city. i've done both so that part of it, we're always going to be at adisadvantage . voters tend to be in more rural areas. i was at an event a week before the election this year . for senator, now senator john brennan, fundraising event for john and a woman raised her hand and asked a question

about bill spady on 101.5. i looked at her and i said if you spend more time worrying about bill spadia, he's not going to lose an election but if jack ciccarelli wins it's going to because they know how to domailing better than we do . on the machine jack ciccarelli was elected governor. account the mail-in votes he loses by 75,000 votes so do i think the election was stolen western mark i don't hear that because i've spoken about it. but the bigger tpoint 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. last story i'll tell you on that is and i was running for election in 2013 right after sandy, we had rebuilt the boardwalk in asbury park. soyou know we rebuilt five months, their taking pictures. running for reelection, start walking down the boardwalk . i guy comes up and he says governor, you're running for reelection . why should i vote for you? i said look at this boardwalk, did you think we were going to get this done? he says that's why i voted for you last time, what do i get this time smr voters think about tomorrow, not yesterday. it shows were a hopeful country. we think tomorrow can be better. we don't want to dwell on yesterday, we want to look at tomorrow. stop the grievancepolitics, stop the moaning and

complaining . fight in the place you can find. fight to do better on mail-in ballots. fight to make sure the county is cleaning up the voter rolls. take those things out of clay and then our ideas versus their ideas i feel like will do okay and by the way in an election where we lost by three points we picked up 64 the assembly. and a lot of local wins. except for the top of the ticket, election day was very good for republicans across the state and i think sends a very clear message not to phil murphy but to legislative democrats who you watch, are going to be much more productive to do what you want them to do if they allare back up for election . with a new map. and that stuff is very difficult and we've got to match right now but we've got a mouth right now, think

about this. when i got reelected in 2013 i got 60 percent of the vote. statewide and we didn't pick up one seat in thelegislature . if that's not a gerrymandered map i don't know what is when the top of the ticket gets 60 percent of the vote and we don't win one seat underneath ? that will tell you everything you need so hopefully we are negotiatinga new map now . we could bein control of the legislature . >> i always like to say one last question which i'll say but it has to be a short answer is we will see. just to show people here that you don't rush. >> i definitely don't every once in a while. >> look, there's two guys there. all right, i'm going to do these three guys but i'll make them short answers. >> will make them straightforward questions. >> so nice to see you governor, mister christy .

looking forward like we've been talking about a lot tonight and especially the midterms next year and even 24 , how do you think the republican party best unites itself nationally where you still have a section of the party that obviously likes seeing new faces in 24 and even sooner and another section that will very much likes president trump. his plan youngkin model a good thing everywhere? >> i should give a short answer to. first, never forget theother side unites us like we could never unite ourselves .and by the way, same with the democrats. donald trump united the n democrats more than i've ever sseen democrats united in my lifetime so remember, part of this process is all my god, what are they doing?

we have to stop themand republicans are willing to put down 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. or about what the voters think are important and so part of what we need to do is we get ourselves back into that mode of thinking. and we have to. we've been yelling and complaining and screaming that most of the voters didn't care about. and theysend us a very clear message not once but twice. in 18 and 20 . we need to listen. >> try to make it fairly quick. needless to say having been a public figure i think everyone was long aware of president trump's foibles and

personality quirks and whatnot but one thing that i think has made people loyalto 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 bsomeone was generally voted republican i've often been disappointed by my party in terms of failure to keep promises made during the campaign. too often ouwe are talked to, we will do this and then nothing is done and except for the fact thatif you look at trump , he fixed a skating rink in new york after six years of nonsense. he built a golf club on the dump in a short 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. so we're looking if somebody's going to be a more acceptable alternative to the foibles and personality problems then we want somebody who is still going to do what he says. i don't know why our party as often disappointed us. >> if you talk to democrats still say the same thing and there will be a bunch of democrats who will say that as well so 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's some things where we differ but they're not usually significant things. here's where i part company with him. you can't stand up behind the seal of the president of the united states 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. he continues to talk like he is a new york real estate developer. when he's president of the united states. the american people want to believe whatthe 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 then he wasn't. what will we have thought at that moment? that's something of enormous gravity to the american people. after what bin laden did to this country the idea that someone would say he was killed when he wasn't would have been something we would never accept from the conduct

of a president. same when theelection was stolen. notpresenting any evidence to back that up here we are 13 months later . still saying the same thing . to me, that creates a huge credibility problem that diminishes what you just talk about and i said this to the president saturday after the election. if you don't either present the evidence that it was stolen now or can see the election, you are going to diminish your legacy. in a way that will damage you personally and damaged the party for a long time. and so there are many things he said it would do. things re a number of but he didn't say that about anybody. but the election night to me was a line that made it impossible for me to say that's okay. we all get into this business knowing that we can win or

lose and sometimes you think it is fair. lost elections i thought were fair. but the that the deal. you stand up like an adult and you say i don't think that was fair but the votes have been counted, people spoke. and i'll live to fight another day. 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 the inaugural morning, not going to the inauguration. look, you think hillary clinton wanted to be sitting there january 2017 donald trump's inaugural? do you think al gore wanted to be sitting there 2001 at george w. bush's inaugural?

you think george bush 41 wanted to be sitting there at bill clinton's? i am confident they would have rather have had a recount been sitting there but 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 can congratulate the victor and we lead with grace and dignity. he didn't do any of that. and it diminished our country in the process. youcan still say i don't think it's fair. al gore fought like crazy against george w. bush for 34 days in court . but when the us supreme court ruled even though al gore lost 5 to 4 he didn't say hell with it, i'm not listening to the supreme court. i'm staying. i'm still the vice president.

you know, he conceded, went out and welcomed bush to the observatory. they met and they show the country that it's the way we operate. and that's the way we've operated in the main for the last 250 years and i think that's one that the president should have done much better. >> supporter and my wife and i drove up from the shore just to be here and we're glad we did. we love to see you as our candidate in 2024 but going back to your point a little while ago about how your own constituents felt about trump and not wanting to hear that voice, i work for a company based in the midwest and i ospent a lot of time at their. there's a lot of good right-thinking people out there but when it comes to new yorkers or anybody from the northeast , there like we don't get them, and we talk too fast, we don't get a chance to hear what we're saying and they 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 they did take a chance on trump and other places they didn't. i could tell you when i was in iowa for a decent amount of time there, there is definitely, you've got to come up little bit. you come from the northeast. it's a little tough. but i think that you know, for any of us our own authenticity has to be what we rely upon. there are plenty of people because believe me, there's plenty of people who don't like me. that's okay. 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, they don't like me. that's fine. that's their call,it's politics . but i think that we can't back away from authenticity. and i think quite frankly one of the reasons trump got elected was because people said all right, look. he may not see things the way i like to say it but i think he means it and i think that's who he is and as a result the people were willing to take a chance on him based upon that authenticity.so i still think the single most important thing in a candidate is authenticity and you can tell when they're not. so you look at certain candidates, iran against a bunch of them in 2015. you look at them and they're sitting there trying to think what the answer should be, trying to figure out what it

is you want to hear and they give it back to you and the american people have for the proven themselves in themain to be a lot smarter than that . the only way to overcome any bias, the bias against the southern counties. there's no doubt that exists. talk about a weird accent, they think we have one. but there's always going to be that bias. i thinkcertain counties overcome that with their approach, their personality, their authenticity . >> she's the only woman who stood up. >> i am not telling her to sit down. [laughter] no chance. if i got to get in trouble with this woman i'm not getting trouble withthat, i'm okay with that . >> thank you for indulging me. so i do admire you and i was happy to be here tonight.

i'm a moderate, i would say i'm a pretty independent kind of person and i did will did vote for biden what the what people need to understand is that ivan was a placeholder . e he was a viable candidate against trump and that was it. it wasn't because people were so in love with biden and that's why biden is struggling because he's also independent , he's going way over to the left . truly, that's how a lot of us are feeling. >> keep going it's fine, i'm glad to say because i feel even the majority of biden supporters are feeling that way. but my question to you is you i think at this point represent a minority in your party. standing up to election conspiracies and i'm wondering if donald trump and his minions so to speak going after you. >> they have. >> what are you going to do, what are yougoing to react

because i'd much rather see you on the ballot .g >> i'll react, you all have watched me for a long time. morris county longer than new jersey. i'll give you the president attacked me a week or so ago and talked about my approval rating. look, my approval rating was bad enough when i left. he made it worse. i thought to myself why didn't he just tell the truth ? it was really bad when ileft. you could have used a real number and it would have been terrible . and my response to him was i don't ldknow, donald. when i ran for reelection i n.got 60 percent of the vote. when you ran you lost to joe biden. that's what i'll do. donald trump has never gotten in a fight with me i believe because he knows i'm going to fight back. he fights in the main with people who can't fight back.

and you'll notice if you remember, i was one of the only guys who didn't get a nickname. low-energy jab, little marco, lying ted. crazy don. i didn't get one.and i'm susceptible to any number of nicknames. that he clearly could have thought of. and let me tell you something about what you said about your vote for biden. i said this trump in2017 . we went for lunch on valentine's day 2017 when he was in office and he called and invited us to come down. he wasn't exactly my idea of valentine's day. it was okay.

and he said like, look around. can you believe i'm here? and he would show me the oval office and i was like no, yeah, sure. you won and we satdown to talk about it at lunch and i said remember something . you didn't win this election. he lost it. i said mister president, it doesn't matter. your hand was on the bible on january 20, you're sleeping upstairs, you're sitting in this office, it doesn't matter but now youneed to make the next four years about you so that you , because you'll be the one judged for years from now. and the same thing happened to me. what when i won in 09, i didn't worry. john corson lost. i'm not a big enough egomaniac to say that everybody went all my god, what i really want is chris christie. and went over my god, i don't want him anymore. is this guy reasonable? and i like biden look like a reasonable alternative to someone that they had already y

hated. by the way that's how trump got elected in 16. hillary clinton and this is demonstrated by the polling data on election day was the single most unpopular presidential candidate on election day in american history. by the way, the second most diunpopular presidential candidate on election day in american history was donald trump. but he won. when i told him that, he got so pissed. i won, i won in a landslide. that's outrageous. she didn't lose, i beat her. look, you can think that but it's just not true. and you shouldn't be upset aboutit. don't get upset . i felt the same way. i know that he lost, i didn't

win but every day i went to my campaign manager day after the election because we want with 30 and a half percent of the vote. i looked 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 and a half percent of the people who didn't vote for me to vote for me . if donald trump had done that , he'd still be in the white house today. instead, what he did was to justify to his face. and that when that happens in a close election you don't bring the country together. you wind up going down. and if you're right again, that's what happened to joe biden. joe biden promised himself he was a uniter and return to normalcy. and then he comes in and he goes way left to the base of his party. the exact same mistake that

trump made. and doesn't try to bring the country together. remember in 2013 when i got reelected i got 51 percent of the latino vote. i got 29 percent of the african-american . four years later i got 11 percent of the african-american vote including three percent of the latino vote. that didn't happen by a miracle. because we work every day. >> .. standing in the middle of thehe country going where the hell do joe biden go? he's all theza way over there wh

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 andnd it wanted to beat trump. they knew those other ones couldn't. i don't understand why this is so complicated. i really don't. maybe i'm just getting too old and i seen too much but it's pretty simple on how tond try to govern and when the country. and when he is the hardest part. once you get there, whether the power of the government -- governorship or the power of the presidency, you have the ability to be able to bring people together. you just have to decide to do it. and i'm disappointed that trump didn't. i'm disappointed that biden didn't, and i think the american

people sent and pretty clear signalat in 2020, they will probably have to send it again in 2024, that we want someone who can bring the country together. we are tired of being divided, tired of not being able to go to a cocktail party and have a conversation about politics. we are tired of people yelling at us because we have a bumper sticker on our carpet we are tired of people getting us a hard time because of what we believe. and when i i grew up in politics that wasn't the way it was. and i think we can bring it back. and this book is an effort to start with my own party. it's always easy for me to lecture democrats, right? >> why did he run as an independent? >> right. >> you could probably l win. let decide to go to the sides. the middle candidate is going to win. >> what you need to do as republican is start with your own party. and start with, 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. i used to say when it's going all the time, the pulse say this, i say to them, my job is to change pulse, not to follow them. if you are a persuasive leader, your job is to change pulse, not to follow them. so i hope that that's what this book starts to do. i know this much at least, it started a conversation. rupert murdoch gave a speech three days later. a' the news corp, the meeting where he said donald trump was wrong. the election wasn't stolen.we g we have to stop talking about it. we are going to fight for the future and where to stop worrying about the past. if trump doesn't stop talking about that he can't be part of the future. if the head of fox news saying that we may be starting to get

someplace. stthat's what i did the book and that's why we started the conversation. and i'm glad you were the last question because i think that's a great place t for us to end. i want to say one thing besides thanking my wife. not only for tonight but for putting up with me for the last 35 years, is that this place is really special to us. we have been here 30 years and we haveer been made to feel welcome here for all three years we have been here. when we were brand-new, you know, residents with no children and nobody knew who we were, to being a freeholder and then being the governor that had thoseht suvs idling outside of every place for eight years all around town with the guys with the wires in their ears. at least at that time you lived in the safest town in new jersey. [laughing] guarantee that. no problem there. you definitely lived in the safest place but through all his ups and downs there were times

that were difficult, and when they have those difficult times the 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 was great, too. but when things werere not great everybody was great, too. even with he disagreed with me they did it in a way that was respectful ofre the fact that we are one of you. and so we thank you for that because you provided usmm 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 or on the little league fields or on the football fields, you guys may didn't feel like they were just four more kids in minden, and that made our lives a lot

easier, so thank you for coming tonight and thank you all. i appreciate it. >> thank you, governor. thank you, mary pat. another beautiful evening. >> if you are enjoying booktv then sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive a schedule of upcoming programs come off a discussion book festivals and more. tv every sunday on c-span2 or anytime online at booktv.org. television for serious readers. >> listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio app at easier. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio and listen to "washington journal" daily at 7 a.m. eastern, important congressional hearings and other public affairs events throughout the day, and weekdays at 5 p.m.

and 9 p.m. eastern catch washington today for a fast pace report of the stories of the day. listen to c-span anytime. just tell your smart speaker play c-span radio. c-span powered by cable. >> live sunday september 4 on "in depth" uc berkeley governmental studies scholar steven hayward will be our guest to talk about leadership, ronald reagan's political career and the american conservative movement. he's the author of several books including two volumes in the age of reagan series, greatness, patriotism is not enough about the scholarship change the course of conservative politics in america. join in a conversation with your phone calls, facebook, it's, text and tweets. in-depth with stephen hayward live sunday, september 4 at noon on booktv on c-span2. >> my name