Christie: With Epstein, Trump Is Learning Once You Start A Fire, Sometimes You Can’t Put It Out
Former U.S. Attorney and NJ Gov. Chris Christie said the Jeffrey Epstein affair blowing up in President Trump’s face should be a lesson that, “when you start the fire, sometimes you can’t put it out.” “He started this Epstein fire during the campaign… He used that to fire up his own base-that he was going to get to the bottom of it, and he was going to release it because he’s in absolute favor of transparency. Well, now you get into the job, and you realize, you know, maybe I don’t want to do that.” “He benefited directly from it. He fueled it. He encouraged it. And he certainly didn’t stop it,” Christie said.
JONATHAN KARL: I am joined now by former New Jersey governor and former U.S. attorney, Chris Christie, and SCOTUSblog editor Sarah Isgur, who served as a spokesperson for the Department of Justice in the first Trump administration. All right, Chris, thank you for being here. Let me get right to the president’s very lengthy statement overnight defending Pam Bondi, because it starts by saying: What’s going on with my boys, and in some cases gals? They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a fantastic job. We’re on Team MAGA. I don’t like what’s happening. So are those boys and gals of Team MAGA going to go along with this? CHRIS CHRISTIE: Well, look, what Donald Trump is learning is, when you start the fire, sometimes you can’t put it out. Now, he started this Epstein fire during the campaign and prior to that-by alleging this was all some, you know, Democratic plot, that Epstein was perhaps murdered by former Democratic officeholders, that there were a lot of Democrats who had been down to Jeffrey Epstein’s island and all the rest. He used that to fire up his own base-that he was going to get to the bottom of it, and he was going to release it because he’s in absolute favor of transparency. Well, now you get into the job, and you realize, you know, maybe I don’t want to do that. And let’s be clear about this-Pam Bondi, there’s no chance, in my opinion, that Pam Bondi made this decision on her own. No chance. She was instructed by the White House that we’re not releasing this stuff. And that’s why he’s defending her. And now he’s at cross purposes, though. When you bring in people like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino-who are true believers in what Trump was saying prior to getting elected-they’re saying, Wait a second. We came here to do the transparency thing. JONATHAN KARL: It seems to me it wasn’t so much Trump himself that was fueling the conspiracy theories-it was the people very close to him, his biggest supporters. People like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Wait a second. We cannot let the president off that easily. He benefited directly from it. He fueled it. He encouraged it. And he certainly didn’t stop it. So, you know, part of what bothers me in this context is that Donald Trump gets a pass. He took these people-who were doing exactly what you just said-and put them in charge of the people on the frontline of protecting the American people from crime and terrorism and counterintelligence operations. He encouraged this, and by putting them in those positions, he supported the work they were doing. JONATHAN KARL: Let me play what Trump said Tuesday at his Cabinet meeting. He’s there at the Cabinet meeting, Pam Bondi is a couple seats away from him, and a reporter tries to ask Bondi about all this. And Trump intervenes and says this: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years. You’re asking-we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things-and are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.
