Chris Christie, ready to take down Donald Trump, talks Hunter Biden, 'woke' Dems, more

Republican Chris Christie thinks the rest of the 2024 primary field is blowing it.

His party is on track to having Donald Trump as its nominee again unless more challengers start confronting the former president in their bids to win the GOP nomination and ultimately take the White House.

"You want to be president, I don't understand how you run against someone without actually running against him. He is the clear front-runner," Christie told USA TODAY.

Unlike other GOP candidates – who are either trying to mimic or campaign around Trump – Christie entered the 2024 presidential campaign race with merciless attacks on the former president's character. He said failing to address Trump's fitness for office is why many of the current contenders have failed to climb in the polls.

A June New Hampshire Journal poll showed Christie, the former New Jersey governor, at 9% − a distant third place. Another survey in the Granite State, however, found Christie had the lowest net favorability of all GOP candidates, with 35% of voters saying they would never vote for him under any circumstances.

"It is not politically correct to say you're against Donald Trump, because it's read by some folks to be, 'Well that means you must be for Biden or for the Democrats, who are harassing him,'" he said.

"I don't think I'll ever be ahead in the poll in New Hampshire until election night, but then I'll win on election night in New Hampshire and everyone will be completely shocked at what happened."

Christie believes the GOP primary is a referendum on Trump, but he has a larger point of view about how Republicans need to defeat President Joe Biden and ultimately govern with a Congress that is likely to remain divided.

He sat down with USA TODAY reporters and editors on Thursday to discuss the marathon campaign, how he would have handled the Hunter Biden case and if there's ever a time to work with Democrats.

Here are the takeaways from that discussion.

Trump indictments: 'Short-term gain, long-term pain'

The Department of Justice has sent a target letter to Trump – who has already been indicted twice during the 2024 campaign – on charges he could potentially face, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, according to people familiar with the letter.

Experts said the conspiracy charge could be an umbrella covering various parts of Trump's strategy to overturn the 2020 election. But those legal perils haven't dented his lead, and in many ways they have emboldened his supporters who echo his view that it is "election inference."

Christie, a former federal prosecutor, told USA TODAY he expects "short-term gain, long-term pain" for Trump with supporters rallying behind him initially.

Down the road, however, the weight of two serious federal cases could hamper the former president's schedule and consume how he explains this to voters.

"A federal indictment is the single most threatening thing you can do to someone legally in this country," he said.

No Trump pardon, but...

A former president going to prison remains an unprecedented moment in U.S. history and other GOP contenders have either alluded or outright promised to pardon Trump if elected.

That is something Christie is squeamish about.

"You know, I'm not someone who if I became president would be inclined to pardon him," he said.

As a federal prosecutor, Christie sent many people to prison, but as governor he issued many pardons. He said a person who receives a pardon typically takes responsibility and holds remorse for their crimes. That's something Trump won't ever do, Christie said, adding that someone his age going to prison is typically a "death sentence."

"I don't know that I want to see a former president of the United States go to prison," he said.

Hunter Biden plea 'makes no sense'

On the other side of the coin, Hunter Biden's deal with prosecutors on tax and gun charges infuriates most Republicans, who on Wednesday hosted two whistleblowers who testified before Congress about problems in the investigation.

Christie said it doesn't take five years of probing to come out with an agreement of two misdemeanor tax pleas and dropping the firearm case. He said the length of the investigation means federal authorities were looking at a lot more, and the public deserves more thorough answers.

"This is not a normal case. This is the son of a sitting president of the United States, and so the public interest in this is going to be significantly different than some fraudster down the street," he said.

He said David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, who was appointed by Trump to lead the investigation, has failed in being transparent with the public.

Can Christie work with Democrats, 'woke' progressives?

As a former Republican governor of a blue state, Christie has experience working with Democratic opponents and has boasted about that bipartisan skill set.

Asked if today's national Democratic Party has drifted too far to the left on certain issues, a claim that other GOP rivals have made a central component of their campaign, Christie said: "I think the problem right now for Democrats is that Joe Biden promised to be a moderating force and a unifying force and in my view, capitulated to the far left in his party, and I think that was a strategic mistake on his part, and it was also a broken promise."

Christie said during his tenure as New Jersey's chief executive, he found common ground with liberal legislators at times and opposed them vehemently at other moments, and that the same open door would apply as president.

"I probably could say it would be unlikely I could get together with AOC on a lot of stuff, but you never know," he said, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

Book bans and 'big government Republicans'

The conservative-led movement to restrict certain classroom curriculum and books has been a favorite topic for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republicans on the campaign trail.

From Christie's perspective, education remains a bedrock family issue as much as a policy question, and he disagrees with liberal interpretations that these new policies are about blocking certain books.

"I don't believe there's a growing movement in the country to ban books," he said.

The New Jersey Republican said what concerns voters is sex education and how to handle gender identity questions in this country. He said the debate comes down to whether these issues should be the purview of parents or school districts, and that he errs on the side of the former.

"I don't know when we got to the point where we thought government was a better parent than parents," he said, criticizing liberal and conservative governors alike who are signing laws that give government more of a say in education.

He sees some of that same pressure on businesses.

"And that's why I call DeSantis a big government Republican," Christie said. "He wants to use government to punish Disney, because they disagree with him. I always thought that's what liberals did."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chris Christie talks Trump indictments, Hunter Biden, 2024 race