'Vanity run amok': Christie, going full Jersey, swats at Trump on CNN | Ed Forbes

Has the true conscience of the Republican Party been hiding out? Has he been talking in quiet and convicted tones with his wife in their lair amid the rolling, shady hills of Mendham?

And could that same mind be the antidote to the insatiable temptations of Trumpist delusion and lies? Those same vanities that are soon to be centered in our own Somerset Hills for another summer of golf and relentless self-involvement?

Could they lie just a ridge or three away in Morris County?

And could that cleansed mind — and palate, if elected (more on that later) — effectively move a Republican agenda forward?

Chris Christie, a week into his run as the anti-Trump in the 2024 campaign for the Republican nomination, took an hour-and-a-half CNN town hall, hosted by Anderson Cooper, to answer those questions Monday.

The former New Jersey governor made the most of a news cycle — and Republican groupthink — obsessed with his onetime friend and now sworn enemy, former President Donald Trump. Trump faced federal charges related to his possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida — and his Bedminster golf club — in a federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday.

Here's what we saw Monday night from Christie:

Jersey Fresh: Chris Christie takes fresh aim at Donald Trump indictment: 'Loser, Loser, Loser'

Trump, now indicted, is now an even bigger risk

Christie gladly prognosticated dire tidings for Trump.

"Loser, loser, loser," Christie said of the 45th president at one point in his 90-minute, prime-time appearance.

"He's angry and he's vengeful," Christie said of Trump — taking square aim at the former president's attempts to dismiss the federal charges he faces as a Democratic witch hunt built squarely on resentment, not the law.

Christie's audience — purportedly of likely Republican primary voters in key primary states like Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire, as well as reliably Democratic states like his own New Jersey and New York — was given a performance of calm and candid analysis and prosecution.

And the references to the Garden State, where Christie continues to center his worldview, were constant — and broad.

Charlie Stile: Chris Christie put his fantasy on the GOP's table. Will Republicans bite?

New Jersey, New Jersey, New Jersey

Christie is many things. All of them come back to New Jersey.

"I governed a blue state," he boasted at one point. "I know how to make things happen."

Christie happily pointed to his record — as a twice-elected Republican in a state with a Democratic registration majority — and reminded his Republican colleagues that he was a rare bird: a GOP executive who made progress with a Legislature controlled by Democrats.

Specifically, Christie pointed to his efforts to:

• Pursue pension reform with New Jersey's teachers.

• Cap annual property-tax increases at 2%.

• Eliminate the estate tax.

These successes, Christie argued, should demonstrate his commitment to middle-class voters worried about affordability and effective government.

"I would have given my right arm" for a Republican Legislature, Christie said, before pivoting back to his own capacity as a broker of compromise.

"You want someobody who's going to fight for an end ... for you," Christie said. "Touchdowns in the end zone."

Christie made mention of his Garden State roots in many of his answers Monday. Of note:

Bridgegate: Christie fielded questions about Bridgegate — a lesson, he said, in his evolution as a manager who wants employees on his teams to succeed:

"Every person you pick for a job in your government is important," Christie said.

What about Christie's connections to Christopher Wray, director of the FBI?

Wray was Christie's personal attorney in the height of the Bridgegate scandal. He would keep his job if Christie is elected, the candidate told Cooper.

"If he wanted to stay, I would keep him," Christie said. "If he stepped out of line, I'd fire him."

Italian American hopes: Michel Hurtado, a Trenton Republican who aspires to serve in the state Assembly, asked Christie what it would mean to be the first Italian American president — and the nation's third Catholic president.

Christie was quick to remind that his mother was Sicilian, not Italian.

His mother, he said, always told Christie, "you can be anything you want to be if you work hard enough."

And, if elected, what about the cuisine at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Will Italian staples make their way to executive mansion menus?

"The food at the White House will be better," Christie said. "For sure."

Mike Kelly: This best-case scenario could be what Chris Christie is betting on

Recognizable Republican values

Anthony Pericolo, freshly bestowed with a Harvard J.D. and a self-avowed Republican from Westfield, asked Christie:

"As a Republican governor of New Jersey, you had to compromise with a blue Legislature to get stuff done. But Republicans aren't looking for someone who could compromise on many of the issues this presidential cycle. How can you guarantee to Republican voters that you won't be a president who will compromise on Republican values?"

Christie seemed pleased with Pericolo's pedigree. He pounced.

"Well, I mean, you're from Westfield, right?" Christie asked.

Pericolo nodded.

"I don't think cutting $150 billion from the public pension debt is compromising a Republican principle," Christie said. "I don't think capping property taxes at 2% a year — and, if you're in New Jersey, you know what property taxes are like and what they're now like under my successor again — I don't think that's compromising Republican values."

Christie carried this parable forward some more, knowing full well he was speaking to voters in the base Republican electorate who are still plotting Speaker Kevin McCarthy's demise for his leadership in avoiding a catastrophic and unacceptable debt default.

Christie was deliberate — in speaking truth to feverish MAGA fervor.

"Understand that when I say you have got to be willing to compromise, it means you're not going to get 100% of what you want all the time," Christie said. "But if you get 80% of a Republican principle, rather than 0% of anything, that's a win."

Republican capacity for compromise, as we learned in the resolution of the debt crisis, and hear from candidates like Christie, is not entirely dead. We continue to pray for its steady and rapid recovery.

Christie went on to prioritize his Republican values:

• Fiscal restraint. Christie summoned the fiscal discipline he tried to impose on Trenton during his years in the governor's office.

• World leadership. Christie summoned his big-versus-small value proposition that formed the core of his announcement remarks last week at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, in which he summoned moments of American greatness led by the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. "America can only be great when it leads," Christie said — a direct rebuke to questions he fielded about spending on supporting Ukraine's efforts to quell Russian incursion.

• Great education. Invoking access to education — and conjuring his record on charter schools in New Jersey — Christie tried to move the needle forward on what has become a staple of culture-war zeitgeist: parental involvement as the latest iteration of school choice. Christie seemed to want to move the clock back, but as ever, clever politics could surely be at play. We should all pay attention to where this policy path guides the Jersey candidate.

Christie went on to stake out other, familiar Republican positions on abortion — leaving the question to states is good, he posits — and on gun control, saying he opposes a ban on assault weapons.

On foreign policy, Christie was definite in his support of Ukraine's defense of Russian invasion — "a proxy war with China," he said, before outlining a predictable and familiar Republican approach to such an overseas war.

Sara Owens, a South Carolina mom who made headlines for a 2022 social-media post about baby-formula shortages, asked Christie how he would balance the need for social spending on domestic poverty against support for Ukraine.

The first part of his answer: blame runaway federal spending at the hands of Biden, Trump and former President Barack Obama for the current state of the national economy, one that strains middle-class voters like Owen.

Then, a dig at Trump.

"Donald Trump spent more money than Barack Obama did in a four-year period and left us with a bigger deficit, even though he promised that he was going to balance the budget in four years," Christie said. "And he left with one of the biggest deficits any president's ever had."

And then a cleanser — one that spoke of ambition, sure, but perhaps, too, of hope. Can Christie bring a Trump-addled GOP from a hall of cracked mirrors?

"I think a big and great country, Sara, should be able to do both," Christie said. "We should be able to get our spending under control, and we should be able to have a strong military that will stand up for friends around the world who are free."

New Jersey has always been America's main road. Anything here can be possible.

Ed Forbes is editorial page editor of The Record and regional director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network's news organizations in the Mid-Atlantic and New England states.

Email: forbes@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Chris Christie CNN Town Hall: Takeaways on Trump, NJ and the GOP