Christie tapped as debate coach?

Trump sought ex-governor’s aid, report says

According to a new report by Axios, U.S. President Donald Trump will have a secret weapon as he prepares to debate against Joe Biden in the upcoming election — Chris Christie. Trump, the outlet reports, is readying to face the Democratic nominee, with the help of the former New Jersey governor.

Trump has previously said that Christie was “harder to debate” than Hillary Clinton, when Christie previously helped him prepare for debates in the 2016 presidential race, the New York Post reports.

At secret meetings at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Christie is said to have been one of a small crack team assembled, with a view to figuring out how Trump can best Biden at the podium. The others included Jared Kushner (Trump’s sonin-law and adviser), his campaign manager Bill Stepien, and Jason Miller, another adviser.

The debates are said to be seen by Trump’s top aides as being of huge importance, the potential key to helping him close the polling gap between him and Biden.

The team fears Biden may not hold many high-profile media interviews ahead of the vote, leaving the debates as the best chance for Trump to make headway.

“I don’t think he (Trump) sees the debates as the last inflection points, but potentially the most important,” one source familiar with the Trump strategy meetings told Axios

Kushner and Christie make unusual teammates, given that Christie led the prosecution of Kushner’s father, Charles, for blackmail in the 1990s. Christie called the crime “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted.” Kushner pleaded guilty to various charges in 2005, including one related to a revenge plot that included hiring a prostitute to seduce his own brotherin-law.

In 2016, when Christie was removed from Trump’s transition team, Kushner was said to have been behind the move, the New York Post reports.

However, Axios’s reporting indicates that Trump may just feel that the awkwardness of having Kushner and Christie in the same room is worth it, if Christie can help him to get over the line in the election. Adviser Michael Caputo told the Washington Post at the time of the 2016 debates: “You don’t see any better puncher and counterpuncher than Chris Christie.”