i appreciate it.

now, how about tonight's program? are you ready? okay, great. are you ready? ookay great. to many people chris christie is known as governor of new york

times is selling author. a successful career in walll 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. to me he's a friend family neighbor so we are pleased to have h them. pleased to have them in our community. as a matter fact it was almost three years ago that chris christie's first book came out let me finish that did a fund-raiser on our behalf. it was a brisk february evening. please do say it was the second book and chris was available to do is fund-raiser and we jumped for joy with it in myself and fellow board member said let's go for it and here we are again. both are sellouts he could say a

chris christie book signing is a ticket like hamilton on broadway. mary pat wolf moderate and crystal will try to get around to the people and questions and we'll have a q&a. there's a migrate here foror anyone who wants to jump up and ask questions and please don't be bashful and a asking questio. without further ado i present mary pat and chris christie. [applause] >> thank you. this is really great and nice cozy group. i just wanted to say thank you to and the board. the library is an important part of our life and our family's

life for the last 30 years which is amazingly been here for 30 years. we really appreciate all that the library is doing. i just paid a fine, $40 fine for the library. two weeks ago. i had to pick up a book and i guess that i hadn't been in a couple of years i gave my $40 fine. o [laughter] you don't even want to know. anyway well thank you to everybody for coming up here. it's been an interesting journey these last six or seven months it took to write this book but i want to start out and ask chris why he wrote it and also asked him to tell us about the process of riding it. >> thanks everybody for being here tonight. it's great to be home. i've been on the road for most

of the past two and a half weeks except for a couple of days aroundndng thanksgiving. i've been to new york and chicago los angeles and washington so it's been a busy few weeks and it's great to have my last official book event at home so thank you all for coming up. i decided to write the book mary pat and i went away for a few days after joe biden's inaugural. we attended president finds inaugural and we took a few days down to florida to relax in what had been a really much more grueling normal than tv schedule because of everything that surrounded the election. we went to florida for a few days and i was sitting in the pool and thinking to myself this is probably one of the first two years the republican party has had in a long time. we lost a majority in the house

of representatives and then we lose the senate and the white house in 2020. i thought and it struck me being involved in this stuff for a o long time it may been one of the worst times weaver had. i got my laptop and i looked it up. it's only happened twice in the republican party since our founders. the last time was 1932 herbert hoover was president of l united states and we lost the senate in and the white house and the figures but the democrats have the white house for 28 of the next 32 years of struck me that maybe somebody who had been a very big loyal supporter of president trump needed to write a book about how we start winning again. as someone who is opposed to

president trump in a number of republicans who weren't i don't think they would have had credibility in riding this book. i have no concerns about where party is headed what direction we are going in and ideas about what we need to do to get back on track. in the process of riding book gives you give it to the publisher made a couple of publishers that were interested but all interested. often said if you are going to twrite that kind of book the first part of the book is to be about your interactions with the president in the last year and a half and after let me finish, the first book ended when you get a chance to read the book if youu haven't already it is the first one third of the book is a recounting of the stories of

incidents that happened with me and the president and that's where i started riding the book but i have a clapboard on the book was my collaborator on the first book as well. alice and i have a process we use to write the book. we get together we agree on which topic we will discuss that they he takes out a tape recorder and he gives a questions and i start talking and then there's a poor woman out in kansas who has the transcribed all of t that. she then sends the transcription back to me and allison we craft chapters in transcription. when we get donee with that another poor woman is to do research to make sure that everything we say that we are completely sure of is actually true. and i'll give you one example from let me finish wrightwood

have sworn this was a correct recollection. a good friend of mine in high school was murdered and i'm telling that story to ellis at that time it and it was the day before school started my senior year in high school. so we have write the book and then it comes back and he says are you sure it was the day before school started of your senior year and i said i'm absolutely sure for their members like yesterday. really sure. this woman found the front page of our local weekly paper and it was actually the day before starting up school of my junior year. i guarantee you if you had put a gun to my head and said if you are wrong we will your rains out i would have said go ahead because i know it. i absolutely know it.

so roberta played an integral role in the process to research everything we talked about and made sure we had it right. first and foremost for the integrityy of the book and simon & schuster wanted to make something -- make sure that we don't say something that wasas blatantly wrong so we don't get sued. chapter by chapter we are working on together and we did a lot of editing anday changing things into my voice and we probably go back and forth on each chapter 2 or three times. he makes suggestions and i make a suggestion we volley back and forth by e-mail and then we get the manuscript done and we send it to our editor's simon & schuster. she then we'll send it back to us with notes in the margins, the things that she wants usha o explain and think she wants us to add and this isn't sent her a very tight -- in this instance

you are in a tight deadline. we started it in march and to have it out by november like lands the though corp publishing. i don't get that but i don't want to argue with the publisher. we were working really quickly. she then decided she wanted an additional chapter on something. she sent it to us by e-mail and ellis called me and said did you read natasha's latest e-mail and i said no, not yet and he goes, don't, don't. i'm going to break it to you gently she wants another chapter. literally whati we did was it s a chapter, was a covid policy and we talk about covid a lot in the book in the first part my experience with covid and i'm sure we'll get to that but but s

was what should our policy beat goingg forward. she said i think you need to do a chapter on that. and by the way i needed it done in two days. so i said to ellis get out your tape recorder. we don't have time to get together. turned on let's go and within two days we had that last chapter done in the last thing you do is you write the dedication and acknowledged meant. the dedication is the front of the book are for children and the militants on the back or whole of the people who contributed to helping me with the book for helping me in this part of my life. that's the way you write a book and believe me when you are finally done with acknowledged meant and you hit send and acknowledged they perceived it he don't want to see it again. you don't want to see the book until itt looks like that and when it does all you want to do

is look at the cover and the title page. i have not looked at the text since late august. >> you also did an audio book and that was a painful 25 hour experience i believe in the other thing some of us read it and edited it and i'm going to tell an inside story. the cover of the elephant with a life preserver originally had a red cross on it. the red cross opposed that. >> it was holding a red cross flag in his truck and in the red cross wouldn't give us permission to put on the cover so we had to go with a red life preserver. >> which was great but on the final copies the elephant had the red cross flag. >> she did and mary pat cotta. i said here's how the cover looks and she said wait a second

>> you want to tick off the red cross. >> i said whatever go ahead. we may have gotten sued by red cross so a good deal on that so that the process of the way i've written this book in pretty much the same process for "let me finish" as well. >> chris loves history and the a part of this book there's a lot of history and h it. talk to the audience about the fact that there were conspiracy stories so important to review history and in particular the john burke society in that background. >> when i started to talk about the idea and make the argument for why engaging time the time and all these different conspiracy theories that have been out there qanon, pizza gate, birtherism and the

election i thought i had a place in it for historic content. this is the first time we have gone through this is the country are as a party. i write extensively in a large chapter on the john birch society which in the late 50's and early 60s became a force inside the republican party, very much want that had a strained strain. ran through a number of conspiracy theories and it became -- and william f. buckley was the founder of national reviewin magazine in the conservative movement and the development of seeing how prominent the john birch society was becoming in the republican party politics. he approached barry goldwater

and knowing the goldwater was considering running for president he said we should do this together and push back on this and if we do so together they think we could have a real impact on the party. so i will write the first editorial for the national review and you write a letter to the national review to support it. goldwater agreed and buckley writes a 4000 word editorial on the national review about whyty the john birch society is bad for america and bad for the republican party and anti-semitism and why it's so bad. goldwater took us out. there's no other way to put it.

we said if he does this he won't win the nomination in 1964. we write back a very short letter to buckley which is nothing like the agreed-upon buckley decided not going to publish it at first and he goes to somebody else to see who has credibility in the conservative movement. he went to ronald reagan who at that time was not even elected official. he did give a speech in 1964 home to half of goldwater early on. it was a speech entitled rendezvous with destiny and reagan have become a very popular figure in that is meant because of his speech. he would be elected two years later in 1966 as governor of california. reagan stood up and wrote a long

compassionate letter to a former democrat as to why he thought the birches were not someone we should be embracing or empowering inside of the republican party. it absolutely did the trick. goldwater ran and you may remember goldwater speechpe at e convention was one of the most famous lines was extremism in the sense of liberty is no vice. that's wrecked john birch language and the loss monumentally. in fact there's a historical note barry goldwater was the last of the republicans to lose morris county for president until donald trump was elected. six from 64 to 2020 every republican presidential candidatee rejected goldwater ad they rejected trump and 2020 and

i think i didn't put in the book because i didn't care about that historical comparison to this audience will. i think it says something about the comparisons we are making. i think it's an interesting chapter in the chapters that follow in the context which is what you are talking about birtherism or qanon or pizza gate before the election. i hate when i hear -- we are in the most dangerous time in the history of t the country. we are more than we have ever been in our history. church came to me and i said i don't know. it seems to me civil war was a time we were more divided than we are now. it's a random thought.

maybe a little common sense hyperbole. we have been here before and remember what happened after that. after that we won the presidency five of the next -- in 1968 in 1992. the republican party recovered and became once again a national force at the presidential level. we got back to the basics and that's part of what the book talks about. >> alongng the same lines i love when you were doing preps with the president and you went into debate prep with reams of examples of articles from previousts president incumbent president. tell the audience what he told president trump and why your advice was prescient. >> i did debate prep in 2016.

i watched and i played hilary clinton. in debate prep in 2016 and i didn't do the first debate in 2016. he had the cast of ben-hur prepping that first debate and the performance reflected that and after the first debate he called me and he said look will you do debate prep for the second debate and i said only if i'm in charge didn't only if i can decide who's in the room. we will have every calm, and harry and. the room and he said you were in charge. we did debate prep for him in 2016 and a quick aside i didn't go to the second debate. we went to to the person but we we didn't do the second one and we watched the debate at home. 78 minutes after the debate was over he was shaking hands on stage and taking pictures of my

phone rang and it was donald trump. he said to me you are so great. it was so easy. it was so easy compared to debating you it was crazy. [laughter] he said you are a better hilary than she is. so you are going to do debate three, right-click yes so 2020 comes and his staff comes to me chief of staff at the time was mark meadows and jared kushner hishn son-in-law who in the firt book i said was a deer friend of mine. he came to mean he said we want you back in charge of debates for the president and mrs. in july. they go we want to start this weekend. the first debate was late september and i said it's too early.

he said he needs a lot of work said i know he needs a lot of work but he's not going to like that. they insisted he was fine with it so 3:00 on saturday i said pokay. so i show up and was sitting in the conference room on the first floor of the clubhouse in bedminster and anne walks the president and he sits down and i'm sitting in the chair across from him and he looks at me says what the hell are you doing here? and i said debate. he said a uk to meet? debate prep is in july for the end of september? how do you think i am? i'm looking now at jared and that meadows. it just knew it was a setup. i knew they hadn't spoken to him

because they didn't have the guts to talk to him and they disfigured i would charm him. so i was prepared as mary pat said. i went back and since the modern era president of debates the debates of kennedy and nixon in 1960 and then there were no debates and 64, 68 or 72 and then in 76 gerald ford in the race coming up of the convention he reads the debates so that started thew modern era and ever since their -- then they are been presidential debates every four years. what i wanted for articles that i out from 76, from 80, 84, 92, 96, 2004 and 2012.

those were the elections where there was an incumbent president seeking re-election or election in gerald ford's case. and every one of them the president, the incumbent president lost the first debate every time but i went back and spoke to some of the folks beforene the debates. i called them and they knew i was doing trump and they told me the same thing which i suspect that which was the president doesn't want to practice. they are like i'm the president. this guy or woman over here they don't know the presidency. i know the presidency. and the president so i said you need to start now mr. president and he said no joke i'm prepare. aye while to

so i go to my briefcase might take out -- and i said it across the table from him and i said debate prep is over. we are doing anything else today. all i wanted to do is go back tonight and read these articles. then i will see you next time you want to. i got up and jared was like maybe we should just talk in general about biden style. i said read the the article mr. president and he said what are they about? how every incumbent president lost. sound familiar? and he said is that true? which is another indication the depth of historical knowledge of donald trump about politics. he just doesn't have any so this was all news to him and they gave it to him and i walked out and jared and meadows followed

me out to the front and i looked at him and i go you were so full of -- you never talk to him.id of course they denied it. they were surprised to see me there so he read those articles into force he did not follow any of the advice that he read the articles because he called me a couple of days later and here is the conclusion nature of the map. he said those other guys are so bad. [laughter] i can't believe how bad they all were paid i'm not going to be that bad chris. i'm going to be good. peace -- he must not have been a boy scout. preparing was not his forte. >> going to preparation for the debates. 16 was difficult because right

at the end of the prep for the second debate for "access hollywood" i go i'm in the middle of prepping him on a friday afternoon before the sunday debate and in came as press secretary with the transcript. it was that kind of terrell meant that made it difficult that he was very receptive of preparations. he wouldn't admitted that he lost the first debate, he knew he lost the debate and he didn't want to lose again. he's receptive to preparations. >> moving on to a different topic. something the book talks a lot about are all the conspiracy theories. talk to this audience in the way you do so well about where the reason is that donald trump lost

the election. suburban women and where he lost votes and how he gained votes in the city. >> if you listen to the president talk about this he is the number of different theories. why the election was stolen in what you will learn in the way i try to approach it in the book is in my two jobs ago, not my last jobve i try to write like a united states attorney. if i had to prove this in court 'what would i do? any doubts i want to address those issues lay out the facts and you draw your own conclusions. obviously i'm taking it from the perspective of bringing case.

so a few things. one of the theories is the election was stolen in pennsylvania and philadelphia and stolen from michigan and detroit. you heard him say this oh boxes of ballots showed up in the middle of the night in detroit and in philadelphia. they were filling out ballots there that none was accounted for. there were more ballots than people registered to vote. you've heard all of this. we go through this with the registration numbers are in the debate and how significantly fewer people that voted. if you look at philadelphia, philadelphia donald trump got 3% more of the vote in 2020 than he did in 2016 in philadelphia and joe bidenle got 1% more info@ -- philadelphia that hilary clinton did. the -- when you hit the guy you

are trying to steal from the guy you are trying to steal from gets 1% less. he didn't steal it. the other thing we hear. 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 800,000 votes. they stole it. we have a unusual election in 2020 because we have the most down ballot votes in and each state decided differently how they count the votes. princeton's in ohio when he went to bed and looked at ohio joe biden was winning ohio. when you woke up donald trump went ohio by nine points.

in the pennsylvania theory stole ohio for biden. in ohio they counted the mail-in ballots first for the mail-in ballots were overwhelmingly in some places 70 to 75% democrat. two reasons, one democrats are fearful of voting in public so more fearful to go to a polling place and vote in person. donald trump said all summer and all fall mail-in ballots are rigged, don'tt trust them. 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 machine that day so in ohio they took down the down ballot votes first. biden was up by seven points.

we are watching on abc because we didn't know which way they were doing it until we started asking questions. joe biden won ohio by seven and then i got the machine votes in ohio and there was a 16-point swing. trump went from down seventh up nine and one by nine. pennsylvania was the exact opposite. and so then you did site to count the machine votes first and trump was up by 700,000 votes than they counted the ballot votes and he loses in pennsylvania a similar swing is the number the percentage was on ohio. lastly in pennsylvania something was happening across the country and i would process to why donald trump was the first presidential candidate since perry goldwater that -- chester

county delaware county montgomery county [inaudible] in 2016 versus 2020 donald trump lost those four counties by 104,000 more votes to joe biden then he lost tobo hilary clinto. he lost both times but he lost by 104,000 votes more than those four suburban counties than he did in 2016. he lost the entire state by a piece of the need to know why don't trump lost pennsylvania he lost pennsylvania for the same reason he lost -- educated suburban voters who gave him a chance in 2016 largely abandoned him in 2020. i'm sure in this town and your

friends across the county and a greater percentage of women by men vote both women and men suburban educated voted far less for trump in 2020 than they did in 2016.6. there's no question that is what happened. that is where he lost in michigan. that's where he lost in wisconsin over and over again the suburbs outside of milwaukee and detroit outside philadelphia who voted for him in 2016 and i was talking about one anecdotal story in the book and the woman who shall remain nameless to cushy lives in town who would volunteer for both of my group and married terry a -- gubernatorial campaigns saw me and said governor what's going to happen tomorrow and i said

look i think we'll be closer than we think but i think biden will win and she looked at her shoes and started shaking k her head. i knew this woman was a strong republican and she had worked with me twice both times for governor and i said i know you're disappointed and she said oh no i voted for biden. and i've looked at her and they i said you voted for biden? why? she said governor couldn't listen to that voice for another four years. so part of what we need to this is why it's difficult for donald trump to accept this. was not a rejection of his policies. it wasas a rejection of his personality by group of voters who had been with him for years earlier. first of all winning is much better and secondly losing is

intensely personal. politics is different than sports. sports you could have a good day or a bad day and sometimes you win and sometimes the other person is better and they have a better day. it doesn't mean you are rejected. this means that day the other guy was better. in politics they look at you and they look at the other person and say i will take them. i don't want you. i can tell you it's intensely personal so people wonder why donald trump has such a hard time accepting this in part and not in hole but in part it's because he knows what she said was true its personal rejection and we go through all the other they give you samples that they are a number of other, arizona george in different places.

some of that's a good segue into what will be my last question for you and then we will take questions from the audience. tell us your view, right now there's an effort in the legislature to federalize voting rights and systems rather. can you tell us your view on federalizing back andha voting laws and what you would do? >> in congress they want to federalize voting. i had to tell you you don't want to live in my opinion under that system. each state is different. how we could ever think voting rules that would be good for wyoming would be good for new jersey when wyoming is the least densely populated state in america. in new jersey is the most densely populated state in america the challenges that we face in voting the

accommodations with the maker significantly different and secondly the constitution i think is clear on this. these decisions are supposed to be made by the state and i go back to what could possibly go wrong with the federal government. imagine the federal government is in charge of counting all the votes. instead of having all the great people that we have in the firehouse when we go there and the volunteers paid a little bit but nott nearly as much that thy sit there all day and help us both. imagineed those people get replaced and federal employees come in. i don't think so. what we need to do like look what happened to mars county. here is why.

usually you have 10 or 12,000 paper ballots and everyy other time it's the machines. this time we had almost 200,000 paper ballots and the same number of machines did count the paper ballots. because they couldn't get ready that quickly. they didn't know covid comes in march of 2020. you can order those machines and get them there by november. even if you wanted to. one of the things i think all of us in this state in particular given the number of voters we have for across the country is not assume we are going to go back in 2022 or 2024 to a very small amount of mail-in ballots. some people have gotten used to that and they like it. it's convenient for them and i think we'll have a lot more mail-in voting so we better get more machines to count these

votes. the other reason we have so many conspiracy theories the longer it takes for us to tell you who won the more you are wondering what the hell are they up to? who is messing around with this and i talk about that in the book the natural american thing goes all the way back to the founding of the o country. their conspiracy theories about politics throughout our founding and it's a free society where people get to express their opinions. they are their opinions and they get to express them out always remember. i have a lot of fun with governor byrne and i miss him. one of the lines he used to use all the time was i made my wife through the promise when i die she will bear me and hutson counties so i can remain active in politics.

[laughter] i want to make clear to you and i say this in the book i'm not saying air regularity did not happen ony election day because it did and by the way it happened in new jersey a month ago. and they happened in new jersey when iran in 09 and 13. happens all the time. the question is is there enough irregularity to change the results of the election in any one state let alone five states that would have been necessary to change the vote for the election and that i think is just not possible. that is an important thing to remember and if you thank you don't trust ay county clerk in mars county to count the votes wait until some federal bureaucrat is counting the votes. forget it. conspiracy theories will triple and quadruple under that

scenario. we know who the head proxy is and if she is messing around we can kick her out. you can't get rid of the federal bureaucrat who's in charge of the election process. if anyone has questions. but there's a microphone right in the middle. we need to use the microphone but the tv guys are here tonight. soon thank you. my question is if the administration makes head wednesday think mainstream media will turn against him? >> i will say this. not completely against him, no because look the mainstream media in this country is planted toward the left. there can't be any questions out there. in fact they are almost playing it out.

oit's almost never not -- we ae doing that roundtable on abc. every once in while they run a republican in their. most of the time it's 3-1 and that's on one of the networks. if you go to the news networks they revel in their plan. "cnn" and "msnbc" are reveling, they think it's profitable for them and fox revels in the rightward swing so you know i say to folks all the time watch a little bit of both just so you realize they are two different worlds we are living in right now, two different ways to look at issues and most of the time you'll come back to the way you think about this. that's why if you look at the bottom of our driveway and we

get teased endlessly about it that we still get actual newspapers. our kids are like are you kidding me? what do you get a newspaper for delivered to your home but we still get them and if you look at the bottom of our driveway there or three newspapers every day. "the wall street journal," giving us their side of things "the new york times" so i know what the enemy is thinking and "the new york post". i think you should get a in the same thing with mainstream media as well. i painfully watch because i don't watch the stuff every night for what i do watch uncle back and forth between -- i can't watch "msnbc." it's too much for me but i go back and forth between "cnn" and fox because i want to see whatever the big stories of the day how they cover them differently and what you'll find

when they cover them completely differently and they emphasize which stories. there will be a day where like let's say there's a big story on wall street and there's a big story in washington d.c.. "cnn" will cover the washington d.c. story and they will cover it with nothing but democratic theers of the house and senate and democratic pundits commenting on it. "fox news" won't cover the washington story unless it's really big or they won't cover the wall street story either. they will cover immigration and there will be stories about immigration and border. everybody is taking a different iapproach to things in a truly educational to watch all of them it helps to inform me at least and i'm talking to people on the other side asom to why the think

some of the things that they think and they think it because that's what they are hearing and watching.. i don't have any hope for 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 is new york city public i schools. i know what the democratic party -- we see the lineses of people desperate to get their kids into charter schools anything but not going to the public school why has it taken hold in the population who live there to get behind school choice and school vouchers and charter schools. the party that they are voting for is entrenched in not supporting i them and the cycles perpetuated and it never gets better. i can understand why that population hasn't moved to the school choice, the charter

school argument which can't be supported by the other party. >> i would say there were two reasons. the first one is folks in the innerti cities have gotten into the habit of voting democrat and they have a hard time breaking that habit unless .2 republicans aggressively campaign there. i would tell you in the main our party has made that argument. republicans many of them tend to be uncomfortable going into those communities and making those arguments. i think it's. if you look at what happened with me in 2013 after four years of arguing hard public education

is failing children and arguing why and the other is a more charter schools thanf any governor for hasn't all of that, what happened? we got more votes in irvington, jersey city we won't they own and union city. we had 62% of the votes and union city in 2013. when i try to argue with pop-up ads across the country you hop to go to places you are comfortable in and go to those places and make argumentsha that you know that group of voters need to hear and to me you were rightrg the education issue and particularlyth the education ise will cut across parties. parents care most about their children and they want their children to get a good education but i will tell you the biggest supporters ahead in 2013 in the city wherers the pastors of most

of the major churches in places like newark and camden and trenton and patterson. of all denominations including imams and mosques in places like patterson and camden because theyay say to me when i was governor we are tired of seeing the children who sit in our pews every sunday constantly be failed by the public school system. now the reason that his mistake 2.3 is' the teachers union acros theen country spend an exorbitat amount of money in making sure. like i hear now in our state and they hear our current governor touting -- touting that we have the best schools in america, okay? were some kids now he's a democrat. he's 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 the teachers union. chwhen i ran against the teaches union in 09, 10 and 11 they beat me senseless. the money they was extraordinary and i and on the upbeat and funny note in 2010 we had the first big fight with the teachers union. may marry at all for children were in an suv with a trooper going someplace but i don't remember where but where on the turnpike and we got off the exit and we were going through the toll and up to the left was one of those big turnpike billboard

shows a picture of me and said chris christie children. and it was an picture of me i mean an picture of me. at that time our son patrick who for those of you here who know our family her son patrick who is the -- he was 10 years old at the time. he said and i was hoping they didn't see it. patrick goes hey dad your people had have to get better pictures of you. [laughter] and i said patrick did you read with the billboard said? those are not my people and because i don't know dad it was a really bad picture. [laughter] that's another reason. >> high governor christie. you brought up governor byrne so

i'm compelled to tell a story that goes back to 1985 with brennan byrne and ed frederick and moorsetown supporting a democratic candidate for senator. he happened to have a fund-raising guy in new jersey at the time. he gets up and looks at bradley and he says you know i don't understand why you happen to the running as a democrat because most of the democrats i know from hutson county followed the same pattern. they get elected, they get indicted and they get sentenced. >> i had a similar experience at my old job. >> on another note i wanted to ask you about october 22 of 2020 at an event that you happen to be there which was the garden party preceding the debate between biden and trump. i think we all know what

happened subsequent to that garden party namely the trump obviously tested positive for covid. there were all sorts of supporters of trump sitting in those chairs yourself included among others. how do you feel at the time where he knew he had coronavirus how do you feel about trump now the gentleman who can afford it, for president in terms of disloyalty to his closest associates and putting them essentially in peril and as a result of the subsequent test he had been testing positive. >> i will say a few things around that to gently correct the record a little bit. my understanding is that he tested positive the next day from what i have 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 wass sitting there and i don't believe by the way that event was a superstructure -- the super spreader event to the people who got covid were three people who were at the party who got covid who were not involved. one of them was father jenkins of notre dame and there were two others. i'm absolutely convinced we all got covid in debate prep. there were seven others including the president in six of them got covid. it isto disturbing to me and to mary pat to have heard for the first time 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 us

for the debates. .. d me and in this story now makes much more sense to me. that it did anytime up to two days ago. he called me and said how are you doing? and and i said not well. how you are doing and i said not well, really bad you some bad two. he said can you believe to tough guys like us caught this thing? we are so tough. how could this have gotten us? we are like the two toughest guys in america. i don't understand it. i said 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? and said i don't know mr. president. pretty confident i got at the white house. six out of the seven of us got

it, who knows who patient zero was, i do not know. obviously got at the white house. he then said to me you aren't going to blame it on me are you? [laughter] and eidson why would employment on you question rick i don't know that you're going to give it to me. it happened in that room but i do not know you are sick too. i don't who gave it to matrix so you're not going to tell the press that i gave it to you? i said i wouldn't say that i don't know that it's true. now up until two days ago my thought process on that was, that was just donald trump's paranoia. he did not want to be blamed. i was always a little bit suspicious because every one of us beside him got tested every day before we went in. 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. that is where the medical unit

is. he would go into the medical unit, they would swab you you sat there for 15 minutes, they got the results of the test of your negative year that authorized to go over to the west wing. i was always a little bit suspicious. as to whether or one of us got a false positive, false negative rather. or o whether it was him. he was the only when we did not know whether he is getting tested every day or not. we would not know, he is the president. so for me and mary pat, especially how bad mike springs with covid it was, and in the intensive care unit for seven days. 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. he tries to hedge a little bit in the book he said he got a negative test after that.

and so they weren't sure. at a minimum what we were owed. everybody in that room was me, kellyanne conway, steven miller, hicks, and the other miller. the other jason miller who is the only one who did not get it. so presumably he is owed nothing. but the rest of us were all owed to be told that. because i will tell you this we all would have worn masks. we did not wear masks we said were getting tested every day. that is why was not wearing a mask at that event because every person sitting at the amy coney barrett events, all had been tested before they were allowed to come in and all the tested negative. but what i said after words whatever the president did he's got to live with his own conscience. i am not going to be able to

impose guilt onto him. he's either going to feel it or not about what he did if he was in fact positive, to all of us. but what i will tell you is that for me, i said this after got out of the hospital but it was a mistake 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 it was wrong. i did not know then. but regardless i probably should've just want to mask the whole time it just would've been an extra layer of safety for me and that's why said the stuff i said after words. as you might imagine went mary pat and i saw that pop up on our phones earlier this week, early in the morning we had an interesting reaction. >> thank you. thank you sir. so, as you mentioned the

irregularities on the election you agree there's irregularities. don't you believe the democratic party double up the system and they are implementing it for the town they control in the mail in ballots and that using the system somehow we have to be concerned about. the same happened to donald trump in the same with the election here. i noteig certain of it is highly controlled by the democrat people. they will do all of the things to influence mail and votes and there's a lot of that going on. doing that and using the machine especially in the school system to teach our kids they graduate they become 90% democratic. it's just a system. it is a corruption. if are not going to stand up against we say it doesn't exist

'as much as we need to worry about i'm feeling it's gotten to that point. eventually were and it has been happening. you got elected and got a job into terms. he sent the assembly and senate know how to win it. they have that recipe. quickly respond to few things there. i do not disagree with most of what you just said except they did not steal the presidentia' election. it is just too hard for it seriously, think about it for a second you really think joe biden masterminded a nationwide conspiracy to steal votes in six different states? joe biden could not masterminded a one car funeral. let alone mastermind that type ofw operation and have it be unfound. now es, our liberal student

educational system in a way to try to indoctrinate our children into eight certain thought process? absolutely it's happening. that's a different fight. that is a fight we should have. a mail in ballots. i support the georgia election law. i support the texas election law. i will take a quick story. this whole idea of not having to show idea you go to vote, somehow being asked to show id is discriminatory. i went to new york city eight or nine weeks ago. i walked into an office building in new york city to go to a meeting. i walk up to the security guard says governor, so amazing to see it. in such a big fan i said thank you. >> , karen take a picture question at shortbread comes from the security desk i get this phone it takes a selfie.

he prints out my visitor pass, can you send the visitor pass for me can have your autograph? next absolute sure. he goes back around the desk and says can i see your id? [laughter] i looked at him and said all right you are convinced enough that i am me that you took a picture with me? and you have me give you an g autograph. but you still want to see my id? he says i'm sorry it's the rules. >> okay what my wallet, drivers license and give it to him. i have to do that to enter an office building in manhattan to go to a meeting why it should not have to show the people and the firehouse my drivers license when it come to vote? i'm a bad example because i walk in here if they don't know me it's a problem, right? i think everybody should have to show an id. one of things i did when i was governor, this is why he should

be less concerned about the voter rolls in this state is i mandated i had the attorney general of the county update the voter rolls. we knocked a lot of dead people off the voter role. a lot of people had moved off the voter role during my eight years as governor. now it is got to be a constant process because people die all the time and people move all the time. but the voter rolls in new jersey are in much better shape than they were before. the last thing on mail in ballots i think they're going to continue to be a factor. i don't want republicans complaining about anymore. we got to get as good at it as they are. it'sy not that hard. you know what they do they send out the balance, then they send a piece of mail saying hey you got your ballot. here is how you return it. then they called four or five times and say hey did you fill your ballot yet? did you fill out your ballot

yet? then they text you. then they e-mail you. it's not turn out anymore, it is drag out. they drag those votes out of s those houses. there is no reason we can't do that. there's no reason we have availability of the same technology all the rest of it makes it a lot harder is the georgia were portion of it because dort two-door here is different than door-to-door in jersey city i've done both mendham is much harder. that part of it were going to be at a disadvantage our voters are more in suburban and rural areas. i was at an event a week before the election this year for now senator jon. fundraising event for jon. a woman raised her hand and asked the question about bill spadea what a 1.5 what are you going to do to combat him? i looked at her and said let me

tell you. were not to spend time he's not going tout determine any electin i said to her but if jackals is next tuesday it's going to be because we do not how to mail in belding and they do. and it turned out six days later i was exactly right. on the machine jack was elected governor. we count the mail and votes he loses by 75000 votes. was it stolen i don't and neither does jack. but, the bigger point on your point we have a bunch of things have got to do and i talk about in the book for us to continue to be a competitive viable party. moaning and complaining and looking in the rearview mirror at past elections never helps you when the next one ever. voters do not want to hear about that stuff.

that is not why they vote for you. the last story i will tell you on that as running for reelection in 2013, right after sandyhe we had a rebuilt the boardwalk in asbury park. we rebuilt it in five months i'm down there taking a victory lap. ayi'm walking down the boardwala guy comes up to me and says heyg governor you're up for reelection i said yeah and he'se said why should vote for your quest marcus a look at this boardwalk said that's why i voted for it last cent what do i get for voting for you next time? voters in the main think about tomorrow. and that is good. it shows we are a hopeful country. we think tomorrow can be better than yesterday. we do not want to dwell on it yesterday part of our party has to start during that period. the grievance politics comic stop moaning andn complaining. fight them in the places we can fight. fight to get voter id. fight to do better mail and ballots. make sure they clean up the

voter role. take those things out of play and then our ideas versus their ideas i feel it will do okay. by the way an election will be t that the tippet ticket by three points we picked up the assembly and the senate and a lot of local seats. except for the top of the ticket election day was very good for republicans across the state. and i think it sends a very clear message but to legislative democrats who you watch are much much more reluctant to do it he wants him to do they're all back up for election 2023 with a new map. that's the last of the redistricting. that is very difficult we have got a map right now we've got a map right now think about this. when i got reelected in 2013 i got 60% of the vote statewide we did not pick up one seat in the

legislature. at tha' is not a gerrymandered map i don't know what is. the top of the ticket get 60% of the vote and we don't win one seat underneath? that will tell you but hopefully we are negotiating a new map now we will get a better map we could be in control of the legislature in two years. >> think i was like to say one last question which i will say to one last question but has to be short answer. we[laughter] looks right we will see i might have two. [laughter] just to show people here you don't write everything. [laughter] works i deafly don't progress every once in a a while. two short answers per click those two guys right there. >> to short answers progress and going to group these three guys on the short answer. [laughter] proximate a straight forward question two. [laughter] a governor and mrs. christie. looking forward like we've been talking about a lot tonight especially the midterms next year and even 24, how do you

think the republican party best unites itself nationally resell the section of the party that would i opposite like to see a w face in 24 and even center. another section that very much likes president trump. is the glenn model a good model for everywhere question what does that very? what your thoughts on that? that's a give a short answer to things. first, never forget the other side unites us like we can never unite ourselves. and by the way the same to democrats. donald trump united the democrats more than the democrats have been united in my lifetime. so remember part of this process is my god, what are they doing question work we have to stop them. republicans are willing to put down some of their differences in order to stop that. this second piece is that we have got to start talk about the things that voters care about.

elections aren't about what the candidate thanks is important. with the voters think is important with the candidate thanks about the voters think is important. part of what we need to do is get ourselves back into that mode of thinking. and we haven't been. we have been yelling, complaining, screaming about things that most of the voters did not care about. they sent us a very clear message not once but twice and 18 and inli 20. so we need to listen. thank you. i'm done. >> will try to make it fairly quick. needless to say having been a public figure i think everyone was aware of president trump's personality quirks and whatnot. but one thing i think is 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. i would say that as someone who is generally voted republican i have often been disappointed by my party in terms of failure to keep promises made during a campaign. too often we are talk to, we will do this and then nothing is done. except for the fact if you look at trump he fixed a skating rink in new york after six years of nonsense. he built a golf course on a dump in the short period of time. he started building a wall when no one was ever built. he moved the embassy in israel to the capitol of israel would have been said this will happen, this will happen. and so if someone is going to be a more acceptable alternative to

the personality problems, then we want somebody who is still going to do what he says. i do not know why our party has often disappointed us progressive talk to democrats of a citizen thing. there'll be a bunch of democrats it will say that as well. i don't think it is unique to our party. but what i will say is in the main i agree to the things president trump tried to do. there are somethings where we differ but they are not hugely significant things. here is where i part company with him. you cannot stand up on the seal of the president of the united states in the east room of the white house at 2:30 a.m. on election night, tell the american people 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 new york real

estate. he continues to talk like he's a new york real estate developer when he's president of the united states. 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 said it.th it will be like barack obama standing up that night in april of 2012 and saying osama bin laden is dead. and then he wasn't. what would we have thoughts at that moment? that is an enormous gravity to the american people like an election after what bin laden did to this country the idea that someone would say he had been killed when he wasn't, would have been something we would never accept it are president right saying election stolen and not presenting any evidence to back that up here we are 13 months later. he is still saying the same thing. to me, that creates a huge

credibility problem that diminishes what you just talked about. i said this to the president the saturday after the election. you either present the evidence that it was stolen now, or concede the election you're going to diminish your legacy and a way that will damage you personally and damage the party for a long time. and so i agree with you there many things he said he would do that he got done. there were number thanks he said he would do that he did not get done. o but you can say that about anybody who gets elected to office. election night to me was a line that made it impossible for me to say that is okay. because it's just not. cwe all get into this business knowing we could win or lose. sometimes you think it is not

fair. i have lost elections i thought weren't fair. but that is the deal. you stand up like an adult and say i don't think that was fair but the vogue have been counted, the people have spoken it i'll let live to fight another day. that's where i think the divide is now. that was not something that was necessary to do. and not welcoming the bidens to the white house inaugural morning, not going to the inauguration. look, do you think hilary clinton wanted to be sitting there on january 2017 of donaldd trump's inaugural? do you think al gore wanted to be sitting there in 2001 georgee w. bush inaugural? you think george bush 41 when to be sitting there in bill clinton's inaugural? confidence they would've rather had elective root canal

than to have been sitting there. but fate went not only did they go they welcomed the victor to the white house and said this is the way we do in this country. it is a peaceful transfer of power were the vanquished congratulate the victor and we leave with great dignity. he did not do any of that it diminished him and it diminished our country in the process. you can still say it's not fairn but al gore fought like crazy against george w. bush for 34 days all the way to the u.s. supreme court. but when the u.s. supreme court ruled even the alcor lost five -- four he did not sam not listen to some important and not not moving out of the naval observatory i am staying uppsala vice president. he conceded, he went out, heat welcome bush to the naval observatory. they met and showed the country

that's the way we operate. that's the way we have operated for the last 250 years. that is one the president should have done much differently. >> big supporter my wife and i drove out from the shore just to be here. we are glad we did. we would love to see you as our candidate in 2024. but going back to point a little while ago about how your own constituents felt aboutt trump and not wanting to hear that voice i work for company based in the midwest i spent a lot of time out there. there's a lot of good right-thinking people out there. but when it comes to new yorkers or anybody from the northeast like we don't get them. we talk too fast we do not give them a chance to hear what we are saying to them. they took the chance on trump and they feel they got burned. how would someone like you overcome what has been a bias over the northeast thanks to donald?

>> out said they did take a chance on trump in some parts of the midwest. in other places they didn't. i could tell you when i was in iowa i spent a decent amount of time there in 2016. 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. it gets a little tough. but i think for any of us, our own authenticity has to be what we rely upon. there are plenty of people because believe me i view social media there plenty people who don't like me. that iss okay. it is their right. but even the people who don't like me, most of them do not call me a phony. they have gotten to.

[laughter] that's fine, that is their call. but i think we cannot back away from authenticity. and i thinkhe quite frankly onef the reasons trump got s elected was because people said look, he may not say it like i like to say it but man, i think he means it. that is who he is. r and as a reason based upon that authenticity. ice of the single most important thing inn the candidate's authenticity. you can tell when they are not. you look at certain candidates they are sitting there trying to think of what the answer should be in trying to figure out what it is you want to hear and then give it back to you. the american people have proven themselves to be a lot smarter

than that. i think the only way to overcome any bias the northeastern against the southern is how that exists. talk abouten a weird accent. [laughter] they think we have one, look at them. there's always going to be that bias. certain candidates overcome mount but their approach, their personality, their authenticity that's all we can rely on. i is no i said only three. [laughter] i know. what's the only one that nstood up. i am not telling her to sit down and leaving. [laughter] no chance if i've gotot to get n trouble this woman not to get about that woman i'm okay with that. >> thank you for indulging me i appreciate it. i do admire you chris i was happy to be her tonight. i am a moderate i'd say pretty much an independent kind of person i did vote for bite i will say that but people need to understand is biden was a

placeholder. he was a viable candidate to trump and that was really it wasn't because people were in love with biden that's partly why he's struggling he's lost the independence. he's going way over to the left and people are saying what are you doing that's howe lot of us are feeling because i'm so glad c-span is here to see it. >> i'm glad toik say it i feel t even the mid- majority are feeling that way but my question to you is, i think at this point represent a minority to some extent of your party. someone standing up to the election conspiracies and so forth. i am wondering if donald trump and his and start going after you. >> they have a very. y >> what are you going to do oral how would you react i'd much rather see you on the ballot. >> thank you i willwa react, you all have watched me for a long time. and certainly new jersey longer

than the country. the president attacked me a week or so ago. talked about my approval rating. my approval rating was bad enough when i left. he made it worse he lied about to make it worse. why didn't you just tell the truth? it was really bad when i left you could haved just use the rl number and it would've been terrible. my response to him was i don't know, donald. when iran for reelection i got 60% of the votes when you ran you lost to joe biden. [laughter] that is what i will do. donald trump has never gotten in a fight with me i believe because he knows that i know how to fight back or he fights in the main with people who can't fight back. and you will notice the guys or

women on stage that did not get a nickname. little marco, crazy jon, they all got nicknames i did get one. and i am susceptible to any number of nicknames. [laughter] he clearly could have thought of it. and what you said about your vote for biden, i said this to trump in 2017 and mary pat was there. we went for lunch with the president on valentine's day he was in office three weeks. he called invite us to come down have lunch with him. it was not exactly my idea valentine's day mail but i got to break mary pat with me. so it was okay. and he said to me look around can you believe i am here? he was showing me the oval office. yet sure you one. we sent him to talk about at

lunch i said remember something, you did not witness election, she lost it. mr. president doesn't matter your hand was on the bible and generate 20th, you are sleeping upstairs, you are sitting in this office it does not matter but now you need to make the next four years about you because you will be the one being judged four years from now. i said same thing happened to me when i won in 2009, i did not win. he lost. i am not a big enough egomaniac to think oh my god what i really want is chris christie. 'they would oh my god i do not want jon anymore. as the sky reasonable? and i, like biden looked like the reasonable alternative to someone they had already rejected it. i understand exactly what you i mean by the weight that is held trump got elected in 2016. was the single most unpopular

presidential candidate on election day? in american history by the way, the second >> by the way, the second most unpopular presidential candidate was donald trumpment but a little better than her. is and so he won. when when i told him that, mary pat will tell you, he got so pissed. [laughter] 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 youou shouldn't be upset abt it. don't get upset. 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 electio' many '0 # 9, because we won with 48.5% 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 51.5% of the people who didn't vote for me to vote for me next time. if donald trump had done that, he'd till be in the white house -- still be in the white house today. instead what he did was decide just to play to his base. and when that happens in a close election, you don't bring the country together. you wind up going down. and it's exactly what's happening to joe biden right now. joe biden promised to be a uniteran and to bring the county together and returny. it 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 and bring more people in.

remember in 20 # 13 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 andd 33% of the latino vote. that didn't happen by miracle. it's becauseec we worked every y to reach out to those folks who didn't vote for us, asked 'em why and tried to deal with the issues they were concerned about. so i absolutely agree with you, independents have abandoned biden because biden abandoned them first. they didn't leaveid him, he left them. they'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 sanedders. sanders. the democratic party rejected elizabeth warren and bernie sanders and kamala harris.

because theye were too liberal. they nominated the 78-year-old guy for two reasons; he was in the middle, and they wanted to beat trump. and they knew those other ones couldn't. >> right. >> 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 on how to try to govern and win the country. and winning is the hardest part. but once you get there whether it's the power of the governor hardship or the power of the presidency -- governorship, 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 a biden didn't. and i think the american people sent a pretty clear signal in 2020, but they're probably going to have to send it again in 2024

that we want someone who's going to bring the country together. we're tired of being divided, we're tired of not being able to go to a cocktail party without having 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 peoplepl giving us a hd 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. and this book is an effort to start with my own party. it's always easy for me to lecture democrats, right in. >> why don't you run as an independent? >> right. >> he could probably win because let the sides go to the sides. the middle candidate is going to win. >> that's right. what you need to do is, as a republican, start with your own party. and start, talk to them about these truths. and and, look, either i'll convince people or i won'tment but that's what this system is

all about. s i used to say when i was governor all the time when the press would say to me, well, the polls say this, i'd say to them, well, my job is to change polls. not to follow polls. if you are a per wayive leader -- persuasive leader, your job isot to change polls nt to follow them. so, you know, i hope that that's that what this book's starting to do. i know this much, it's started a a conversation. rupert murdoch gave a speech three days later at the news corp. shareholders' meeting where he said donald trump is wrong, the election wasn't stolen. we have to stop talking about it. we're in a fight for the future, and we have to stop worrying about the past. if trumpt doesn't stop talking about it, then he can't be a part of the future. well, if the headd of fox news s saying that, we may be starting to get someplace. so that's why i did the book, and that's why we start the dconversation. and i'm glad you were the last question, because i think that's a great place for us to end.

one thing besides thanking my wife not only for tonight, but forni putting up with me for the last 35 years. this place is really special to us.we we've beenar 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 freeholder and then being the governor that had those suvs idling outside of every place for eight years all around town -- [laughter] was the guy -- with the guys with the wires in their ears. at least for that time, you lived in the safest town in new jersey, guarantee you that. [laughter] no problem there. you definitely lived in the safest place. butt through all of those ups ad downs, you know, there were times that were difficult. and when they happen in public life and you come home, you want

to not have to wore arely about going out -- 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 disa agreed 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 usco a community to raise all fr 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'tt make them feel different. and that, on the soccer fields or the little league fields or the football fields, you guys made them feel like they were just four more kids. 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 and, and thank you, mary pat. another beautiful evening. ♪ >> this fall watch c-span's new series, books that shaped america. join us as we embark on a captivating journey in partnership with the library of congress which first created a books that shaped america list to explore key works of literature from american history. the ten books featured have provoked thought, won awards, led to significant societal changes and are still talked about today. hear from featured renowned experts who will shed light on the profound impact of these iconic works and virtual journeys to significant locations across the country intricately tied to these celebrated authors and their unforgettable books. among the books, common sense by thomas paine, huckleberry finn by mark twain and free to choose

by milton and rose friedman. finish watch our 10-part series, weeks that shaped -- books that shaped america, starting monday, september 18th, at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our prix mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. ♪ >> weekends on c pan 2 are an inte e lek chul feast -- c-span2 are an intellectual feast. american history tv documents america's stories. and on sundays booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authorses. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more, including cox. >> this syndrome is extremely rare. hi. but friends don't have to be. this is joe. when you're connected, you're not alone. >> cox, along withhese television companies, supports c-span2 2 as