(upbeat music) - Hey folks, Steve Adubato here.

The gentleman that you see on camera, you recognize him.

So you recognize him for all kinds of things.

Former governor of New Jersey, ran for president of the United States, former US attorney in the great state of New Jersey.

But what you may not realize is over his right shoulder.

Yes, you do see a Rutgers helmet, but you see another helmet there, that would be of the Dallas Cowboys.

Welcome Governor Christie first of all.

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

- Can you give us a minute or less on what the connection is between you and the Dallas Cowboys?

We're taping this a week before the Super Bowl.

They're not in it.

That's all I'm gonna say, but go ahead.

- That's true.

I was there in Dallas watching the game with Jerry Jones when they lost to the 49ers.

So I am painfully personally aware that they're not in the super bowl.

Real simple Steve, when I was eight years old, Roger Staubach, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys to a win in Super Bowl six and I became a huge Dallas Cowboys fan.

I loved Roger Staubach and still do to this day.

He was a donor to both my campaigns for governor and my campaign for president.

And during the time I was governor became friends with Jerry Jones, the owner of the Cowboys, and we've remained friends since.

So those are the Cowboys connections, but it really all goes back to Captain America, Roger Staubach in 1970.

- So listen, you and our president, the WNET group, Neil Shapiro, very big Dallas Cowboys fan, and also Chris Christie finally, a huge, huge New York Yankee fan.

- No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

- Did I have that wrong?

- You have that wrong.

- Is that fake news?

I'm a lifetime New York Mets fan, as you know, and now honored to be a member of the board of directors of the New York Mets.

- We will let that go for now.

And you wanna talk, first of all, it is our honor to have you governor and I wanna get right into this.

We are taping on the 7th of February being seen later yesterday as I have it DVR'd other than all the PBS shows we watched.

We watched this week on ABC, which you were on a terrific round table on a regular basis.

You said yesterday, I wanna just get into this.

Mike Pence finally came out, president was wrong, tried to overturn the election.

You said January 6th was a riot.

You also asked what took Mike Pence so long?

Question, big picture.

What do you believe the long term significance of January 6th will be, A, and B, will we ever get past the fact that 70% of the Republicans in this nation still think Joe Biden is not even the president?

- Well, a couple things.

I don't think there's going to be a long term significance to January 6th, Steve.

I think it will always be a historical moment in our history that we'll acknowledge.

But I, unlike other people think that what January 6th showed was the resilience of our democracy, that despite the violence, despite other people storming the capital and that next morning at 4:00 AM, the House and the Senate were back at work and they confirmed and certified the election of Joe Biden as president of the United States.

That to me shows the resilience of our democracy, which is why I don't think that January 6th will have any long term ramifications except to be a marker and a moment in history that those of us who were alive at the time will remember.

And those who weren't will probably learn something about in their classrooms in the days to come.

I think on the idea of the Joe Biden being president, look, I see that changing more and more as I travel around the country.

And as it gets longer and longer without Donald Trump showing any evidence that the election was stolen, and I think people who wanted to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt initially, because they supported him and his policies are getting more and more impatient, and in fact, now dismissive of this talk of 2020.

With all the things that are going on in our country and around the world right now, we don't have time to be looking backwards if we want our country to continue to be a dominant country in the world.

So I think that's fading and I think it will continue to fade over time here.

- So, and Chris, and for those who are thinking, I'm be being disrespectful to the governor, we have a long term relationship, it's okay, governor?

- Yes doctor Adubato.

- Yes, call me doctor.

- Yes.

But Chris, you and I know that a significant number of my friends and your friends, yes, I do have a significant number of Republican friends who not only voted for Donald Trump, again, you were out of that race.

I believe New Hampshire primary.

You got out right after that.

In 2016.

They don't believe that Joe Biden is president, A and B, many of them, a high percentage of them who voted for president Trump actually say they quote love him.

And here's the question.

The rear view mirror is one thing.

But for all those who believe that Donald Trump is a great leader and you were part of that campaign and you were helpful to him and you did the debate prep we'll talk about in just a minute or so, but they really believe that he can do no wrong.

What do you say to them?

And I don't mean on public television, but what do you say to them because they're your friends as well?

- Sure.

Look, Steve.

I admire a lot of the things that Donald Trump did from a policy perspective as president.

I think the tax policy from my perspective was much more right than what we're doing right now.

I think his regulatory policy was outstanding.

I think what he did on the judiciary was outstanding.

So there's lots of things that I think are to be admired about what happened during his four years.

The problem is that he allowed his personality to overwhelm the policies.

And what I say to folks is the Republican party, like any political party is organized to win.

And Donald Trump did something in 2020 that's only been done once before in the history of our party, the 150 plus year history of the Republican party.

He lost the House, the Senate and the White House in two years.

The only other time that happened was 1930 to 1932 under Herbert Hoover.

And I don't think that's, and Steve, thereafter, the Democrats held the White House for 28 of the next 36 years.

I don't think that's something we should be striving for as a party.

And I think we have to look for ways that we can reconfigure our coalition into a winning coalition, not only this fall in the House and Senate races, but when the presidency is back up again in '24.

- Governor, did you believe that there's a choice to be made for Republicans, again, whether it was on ABC or CNN I was watching our nightly programs on PBS that it's always described as a civil war, the Republicans have a civil war going on.

It's either you're with Donald Trump and the big lie or you're not.

Do you believe that it is largely what it comes down to as I'll complicate the question for you that the Republican national committee, just as we speak, holds some sort of vote, and I heard you say on ABC it's X number of people and a higher majority of them, they voted Adam Kinsinger and Liz Chaney, that they be censored for their involvement in the January 6th, what they called, the Republican national committee called it the persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in political discourse, what you call and many reasonable people, a riot.

There's a question there, trust me, is there a civil war?

And do you have to pick sides?

- No, I don't think you do Steve.

I think you just have to be honest.

Answer the questions and the challenges that are in front of you and do so honestly, like I just said to you, there's a number of things that Donald Trump did that I was supportive of.

I voted for him in 2016 and in 2020.

And I, as you mentioned, prepared him for the debates in 2016 and in 2020.

But to me, his conduct from election night forward has become disqualifying.

And that's a very difficult thing.

- Excuse me, Chris, disqualifying for the presidency?

- Disqualifying for the party to say that he should be the nominee no matter what, and that's step one, if you wanna be president, you've gotta get the party's nomination.

I think if he decides to run in 2024, that he will have significant competition for that which he might not have had, but for his conduct post-election, if he had conceded that election on election night or soon thereafter and welcomed Joe Biden to the White House for a meeting, and then welcomed Joe and Jill Biden on inauguration day and sat on the inauguration stand and watched him take the oath of office, but then opposed the Biden policies in a way that Donald Trump knows how to do, I think he would be the far and away front runner, if not the presumptive nominee in 2024, it is his conduct post election, which in my mind is going to bring him if he ever decides to run for president again, significant competition and not the default coronation that he might otherwise have gotten.

- And that includes trying to overturn the will of the people.

- Absolutely.

And those were his words, Steve, as I said on ABC, he said that Mike Pence had the ability to overturn the election.

And I think that that's just legally wrong and historically bankrupt.

And I was glad to see that the vice president added his voice to that this past week.

And the vice president stood up in 2021 in January to say, no, he wouldn't do that and wouldn't participate in it.

But I think it's also important that he added his voice to that this past week.

- Governor, we have the entire half hour with you, which is a real, you don't always get that opportunity, but long form conversations here in public broadcasting allow us to do that.

So I wanna thank you and your team for doing that.

Let me try this.

The biggest disagreement you have from a policy point of view with president Biden on what issues and what are those disagreements.

- I mean, you know, I don't think I could get into biggest, if you make me reduce it down to one, Steven.

- No, not one.

The major two or three.

Go ahead.

- Sure, first, I think the incredible expansion of the role of government in people's lives is something that I think is not good for democracy, not good for people's individual liberty.

Second, his conduct of what happened in Afghanistan, I think is gonna come back to haunt us, not only with the young men and women who already have given their lives because of the botched withdrawal from there, but I think you're also gonna see Afghanistan once again become a hotbed for terrorist training and terrorist attacks.

I think that's a place where I significantly disagree with president Biden.

I significantly disagree with what he's done on COVID.

I think that he mischaracterized the way the vaccine would work in the beginning, trying to lead people to believe that if you got vaccinated, you couldn't get COVID.

Well, that was just wrong.

And what it did was it set up a situation where when people started to get COVID, even with significantly milder symptoms, because they were vaccinated, it led the people who had skepticism about vaccines to say, see, the government told us we wouldn't get it if we got the vaccine and now we got it, he oversold the vaccine.

I think that was a mistake.

And on COVID also, how are we sitting here Steve today, nearly two years into this epidemic and not have sufficient testing available for people so they don't have to wait in lines for tests, especially after the president, a year ago, appropriated $1.9 trillion additional to the trillions we had spent under president Trump.

How do we not have testing available for you to bring home from every pharmacy in every spot in this country?

It's an enormous failure.

So there's three.

And we could go on with more later.

- Can we stay on COVID?

- Sure.

- And I know there's supposed to be a break and if it's okay with you governor I'd like to keep the momentum of this conversation.

So you got COVID, and had, I can't characterize, and this is the book, by the way, Chris, I realized I didn't even plug the book.

This is the book.

It is Chris Christie, "Republican Rescue: Saving the Party From Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden".

I apologize for not letting everyone know.

So governor, you talk in the book extensively and from a very personal perspective about your experience with COVID in the hospital and you were not sure how it was gonna play out.

First, do you believe you contracted COVID during the debate prep with president Trump and others who were there, correct?

- Yes.

- Why are you so convinced of that?

- Well, because there were seven of us in the room and six of us got it very soon after the first debate, including the president of the United States.

And we now know from Mark Meadows' book, that the day that we started debate prep on that Saturday before the Tuesday debate or that round of debate prep that the president had a positive test and none of us-- - Did he tell you that governor?

I'm sorry for interrupting again, did he say I've had a positive test?

I want to let everyone in close proximity inside, no mask, know that, did he?

- No.

He never did.

Nor did Mark Meadows tell us either, even though for all the rest of us, we were tested every day before we were allowed into the west wing and had to have a negative test before we were allowed into the west wing.

So I'm convinced that I got COVID at White House and I'm now convinced after what former Congressman Meadows wrote in his book that I most likely got COVID from Donald Trump.

- And you were in the hospital for many days.

- Seven days in the intensive care unit.

- Okay.

You really were, and I'm not being overly dramatic and read the book and you'll see what the governor, in his words, he'll describe the words that he shared with Mary Pat, his wife and his children, and how personal that was and how serious the situation was.

And I don't like dramatizing this, but it just strikes me as a character question and people can decide what that really means.

But you did get a call from president Trump, you got a call and he asked what?

- Well, at first he asked how I was doing, and we had a conversation about how both of us were feeling.

He was in Walter Reed Hospital at the time.

And I could tell you from talking to him that he sounded awful.

So whatever he says now about how bad COVID was for him, he sounded pretty terrible to me over the phone.

But then he asked me how I thought I got it.

And I said, well, I'm sure I got it at the White House.

I said, but you know, that's all I know.

And he said, well, are you gonna tell people you got it from me?

And I said, well, no, sir, why would I ever do that?

I don't know that I got it from you.

And he said, well, you're sure you're not gonna do that, I said, well, no.

I said, I wouldn't do that because I don't know that to be true.

That was pretty much the end of the conversation.

It was strange and I thought a little paranoid at the time, the conversation, but he was ill and I chalked it off to that.

But now knowing what I know, it's pretty clear that he knew he had gotten a positive test that Saturday, he knew he was the one who had likely given me COVID, but he wanted to make sure that I wasn't gonna bring it up in the context of the remaining campaign and blame him for having given it to me and gotten me sick.

- Thank you for sharing that, again there are more details in the book.

Chris, let me try this.

Again, we have known each other for a long time and I will disclose that while we've had some intense, sometimes combative interviews on the air, is that fair to say when you were in office as governor, is that fair?

- Sure, yeah.

You were not always pleased with me?

- Rarely was I displeased.

- Okay.

- But there were a couple of times.

In fact, I will tell you Steve real quickly that your interviews live on.

Mary Pat and I were away this past weekend in Florida and a couple came up to me and said that their favorite interview they had ever seen of me was when I told a woman that it was none of her business why I had sent my children to Catholic school rather than public school.

And as you will remember, that response was a product of a Steve Adubato interview on PBS.

So, and that was, gosh, that must have been 10, 11 years ago, and these people still remember it.

So we've had some memorable interviews I think it's fair to say.

- Yes, that's why I miss being in the studio, that was at the Tisch WNET studio in Lincoln Center, WNET studio.

But here's where I want to go with this governor.

So the reason I'm talking about this is because governor Christie and I have had lots conversations offline as well.

We disagree on a lot of policy issues.

We agree on some, but the one thing, and trust me, there's a point here, I'm not trying to get overly personal, but it strikes me how nasty and how personal and how polarized we become to the point where many of the friends I just talked to you about, my friends or your friends are some of the same people.

People don't even talk to each other anymore Chris, people, family members, either you're with him or you're not with him and COVID's real, mask no mask, to the point where it's not really just do you have a different view on politics and we can have a discussion, we can disagree.

And governor Christie used to call me and tell me when he wasn't pleased and we'd go back and forth and then he was very close to my dad and would come see my dad and my dad, God rest his soul, was very sick.

The reason I'm saying all this is, it was never all that personal for you.

And now it seems always to be personal.

What am I missing?

- Well, look, I think that as the country has gotten more polarized on some of these issues, our leaders have not done the job that they need to do to try to bring people together.

So I think this all, to me, Steve and I write about this a little bit in the book.

I think it all started back during the Clinton administration with the conflict between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich and the contract with America.

I think it became very nasty starting then.

Fast forward to the 2000 election and the Bush Gore election, where there were a number of Democrats who called George W. Bush and illegitimate president and I think that really continued to divide and exacerbate things in the country.

Go forward to 2008 when there were some Republicans, Donald Trump at the forefront, who said Barack Obama was an illegitimate president because they alleged-- - Wasn't even an American citizen.

- Right, he wasn't born here, that was destructive and wrong.

And then you go forward to 2016 when Hillary Clinton still won't acknowledge that Donald Trump was legitimately elected, even though she conceded the race and now Donald Trump taking it to an even higher level with the Joe Biden thing.

I think we've been on this path-- - And January 6th.

- Right.

We've been on this path now for 25 years.

It has not happened overnight and it's not gonna be fixed overnight, but it will only be fixed by leaders who decide that it's more important to put the interests of the American people in our country first and their own personal interest second.

And until we get some leaders like that who are willing to do it and willing to risk their political lives for it, it's not gonna change.

- Chris, where do you draw the line?

Because you've always been, again, take the whole thing, get the hell off the beach during Sandy, and you've had real battles with the legislature when you were governor and some may have believed it was personal.

I know you in a different way.

I saw it differently.

Here's my point.

What's the difference in your mind between the rough and tumble, the aggressiveness of New Jersey politics and what I'm talking about right now, which is totally different, which includes the potential for violence and threatening members of the January 6th committee and other members of Congress and Republicans who are secretaries of state or governors who didn't go along with what Trump wanted.

They're threatening their families.

That's not rough and tumble New Jersey politics.

- No, look, the line for me has always been that it's gotta be about making policies and the condition of your state better.

And if you're fighting hard for that, that's great, but you can't make it personal in terms of threatening people in a personal way and calling into question their patriotism.

You know I had a lot of battles with a lot of different Democrats and some Republicans, but mostly Democrats during my time as governor.

But in the end, those people were always invited around the table to come up with a solution.

They were always invited to give their input to me.

And even when I didn't agree with them, and for some of them, I didn't like them either by the way, but that didn't matter to me.

What mattered to me was do I need to work with that person in order to get something done?

And if I did need to work with that person, then I did.

And I think that's what we're missing is that personal element where people are willing to work together.

- Including the fact that while you may not have hugged president Obama, he greeted you, you greeted him when you needed help from the federal government, governor, I would be remiss and I'm gonna get criticized If I don't ask you this, so I'm gonna do this.

As a student of leadership, you know I ask about leadership, talk about it all the time.

The biggest leadership lesson you learn from, yes, Bridgegate, the biggest leadership lesson you take from that, forget about the legal issues and anything else.

What did you learn from that as a leader?

- Every personnel decision matters.

Every personnel decision matters.

And when you make a lot of them, you sometimes tend to not focus nearly as much as you might on some rather than others, but anybody who's working in your name on your behalf is perceived as your responsibility.

And so you're gonna be how accountable for all that.

And so I think that's what I would learn most from that is that you gotta make those decisions very, very carefully all the time.

- 30 Seconds left, you're optimistic about our democracy at a crossroads.

Chyron has been on the screen the entire time.

You optimistic, and if so, why?

30 seconds.

- I am because while our democracy may not be perfect, it's the best system of self-governance I've seen in my lifetime or read about during my educational period.

And so I really believe the American people care about freedom and liberty and opportunity.

And they're frustrated right now and they're angry, but I think more than anything else, Steve, what they want is for leaders to be for something again, not just against things.

And I think if we start doing that again, our democracy will come back around and we'll get through this dark period.

- Governor Chris Christie, New York Times best selling author.

Chris Christie, "Republican Rescue".

You can read the rest.

Hey governor.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

- Steve, thanks for having me, it's always good to come back and chat with you and please send my best to your family.

- I will.

Same to yours.

That's Chris Christie.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by IBEW Local 102.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

NJM Insurance Group.

Operating Engineers, local 825.

And by Seton Hall University.

Promotional support provided by AM970 The Answer.

And by Insider NJ.