Presidential Candidate Chris Christie in conversation with the Besties

The hosts open the third long-form interview of the 2024 cycle, after RFK and Vivek, with Chris Christie. They note the last two administrations added to the debt, with Trump close to $8 trillion and Biden $4 trillion, and one host says the deficit is his number one voting issue.

Friedberg frames the case: a deficit above $2 trillion, debt above 130% of GDP, over 30% of the debt due within a year at rates he puts near 5.5%, and Social Security and Medicare forecast to run short. He asks whether this matters to Christie or is a can to kick.

Christie answers from experience in New Jersey: a $2 billion mid-year gap and an $11 billion gap on a $29 billion budget. He says he refused tax increases, eliminated 683 programs and cut state aid by the amount of school-board surpluses. He was elected with 48.5% and his approval fell below 40 percent within six months.

Christie draws three lessons: spending must fall, delay only worsens the problem, and leaders must trade popularity for results. He says he is the only candidate saying aloud that the retirement age and means testing should be considered, for people in their forties and younger.

He states that Social Security is eleven years from insolvency, implying an automatic 24% benefit cut, and a 25% Medicare cut. These are his claims in the conversation, not figures checked here. A host objects that polling shows more than 83% of Americans oppose touching the programs.

a leader's job is not to follow polls. It's to change them.

He adds that most people in the poll do not know the insolvency date, and says older voters at his town halls look horrified when told. He faults Obama, Trump and Biden for kicking the can, and says Bush's attempt was rejected by Congress.

Asked for savings, Christie points first to social spending that rose after COVID and was never reversed, and second to education funding, where he contrasts $800 billion in total spending with $80 billion from Washington. He rules out military cuts for now, saying the Pentagon needs efficiency and the Navy and Air Force are in poor condition.

Sacks asks about the Iraq War, which he says Trump called a lie in 2016. Christie says most people would admit they were misled over weapons of mass destruction, that he supported the war for that reason, and that Trump's 2016 statement was a sophomoric way of changing his mind.

I wouldn't use the word lied. I would say misled into the Iraq War.

Pressed on why he endorsed Trump two weeks after the South Carolina debate, Christie says he expected Trump to be the nominee, did not want Hillary Clinton, and thought he could make Trump a better candidate. On 2012, he says he was not ready and does not regret skipping it.

But that's kinda like the dog catching the garbage truck.