When Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015, his Republican opponents weren’t quite sure how to respond. Few, if any, took his campaign seriously, and most people assumed that his quick rise in the polls was just a passing fad. So even as his base of supporters swelled, most of his opponents chose to treat him with kid gloves in the early days of the race, with some trying to avoid mentioning him altogether. When they finally tried to go after him, it was too little too late.
Eight years later, Trump’s opponents in the Republican presidential primaries seem to be repeating the same mistake. Except this time, their approach is more inexcusable. After all, in 2016, Trump had no political record to pick apart, but today he has a legacy that’s not exactly something to be proud of: He fomented a deadly attack on the US Capitol; has been twice impeached and twice indicted; and he has even proven himself to be an albatross for the GOP, which lost the 2018 midterms, the 2020 presidential race, and underperformed in 2022, when candidates who fully embraced Trump and his election-denying conspiracy theories lost otherwise winnable races.
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And yet despite all of that — and the fact that his record as president shows he barely delivered any policies the GOP wanted or that he himself promised (wasn’t Mexico supposed to have paid for the wall by now?) — most Republican presidential candidates are still tiptoeing around the topic of Trump, worried about alienating his die-hard supporters. But there is at least one candidate who stands out: Chris Christie.
The former New Jersey governor isn’t the person you’d expect to be the anti-Trump candidate. When he ran for president in 2016, Christie was soft on Trump, eventually became one of his biggest supporters, and even helped him prep for debates against Joe Biden in 2020. But since announcing his candidacy earlier this month, Christie hasn’t shied away from attacking the former president, calling Trump out for his election lies, his mishandling of classified documents, and his megalomaniacal nature. Whatever the reason for Christie’s 180 — be it political opportunism or a genuine realization that Trump is a dangerous force — he’s charting the right path to dealing with Trump, and more Republicans should follow his lead.
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“He has shown himself, particularly in his post-presidency, to be completely self-centered, completely self-consumed, and doesn’t give a damn about the American people, in my point of view,” Christie said in a recent CNN town hall. He called Trump’s election denial a “child’s reaction,” adding, “The facts are, he lost to Joe Biden. And he lost to Joe Biden, in my opinion, because he lost independent voters.” And he didn’t regurgitate the GOP’s dangerous talking points about the Department of Justice’s indictment of the former president, saying, “Whether you like Donald Trump or you don’t like Donald Trump … this conduct is inexcusable.”
Christie is certainly trying his best to stand out as the anti-Trump candidate in the race, calling out his other Republican opponents for their weak posture toward the former president. “They’re playing political games with you,” he said of their attacks on the Justice Department. Indeed, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has called on his fellow Republican presidential candidates to pledge to pardon Trump, for example, and Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida claimed the DOJ was being weaponized to target political opponents. Other candidates who have tried to condemn Trump have only prodded and ultimately taken a torturously confused stance. Former vice president Mike Pence, for example, called Trump’s indictment “divisive” and accused the DOJ of being politicized, while saying he “can’t defend what is alleged.”
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But if any of these Republican candidates are hoping to topple Trump, they’re going to have to take sharper aim at him, just as Christie has. There’s no denying that Trump is the front-runner in the race, and that this is his primary to lose. And so if there’s anyone who merits a pile-on from his opponents, it’s him. While worrying about alienating Trump’s base is understandable from a political standpoint, it ultimately shows a lack of leadership. And what the GOP needs is someone who doesn’t just hope the party moves on from Trump but someone who actually makes a convincing case to GOP voters why Trump is a bad choice for them to make again.
There is certainly an irony in Christie charting that path. When he was governor of New Jersey, Christie was in many ways a proto-Trump — a bombastic, mean, conflict-driven politician who liked to dunk on political opponents and constituents alike. He also happened to preside over a scandal-prone administration accused of making governing decisions based on grudges, no less. But everyone should get a chance at redemption.
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Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us on Twitter at @GlobeOpinion.
