Minutes after the conclusion of the fifth GOP presidential primary debate on Wednesday, MSNBC’s panel of far-left radicals were obsessed with a man who was not on the stage. No, not former President Trump. This time it was former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who dropped out of the race hours before the debate started. The liberal talking heads insisted that Christie’s failed campaign had more impact than the debate and were very sad that he was unable to confront Trump on a debate stage.
“The only one who clearly has shown that they were in a fight tonight was Chris Christie. And he was there to bow out, Chris Christie,” shouted the host of The 11th Hour, Stephanie Ruhle. She praised Christie for spending “$12 million,” which she argued “improved his legacy” because it was used against the former President.
“He had more impact than the tens of millions of dollars that Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley will have spent, they are going to end up just being…forgettable!” she proclaimed.
The extremist host of The ReidOut, Joy Reid, lamented that “the problem Chris Christie had is that he never got to actually say those things with Trump on the stage.”
Reid fantasized about an alternate universe where Trump had opted to attend the GOP primary debates and Christie was able to tell him off to his face:
I just sometimes think that there is another sort of metaverse where Chris Christie runs the exact same campaign, and speaks really blunt truth that I actually – I'm with Lawrence, I gained a bit of respect for him in a way that he spoke truth to Republicans in their own terms about Donald Trump carrying only about himself, not about them. And about the fact that he is unfit and saying ‘I’m saying this as somebody who knows him and supported him, and supported him for my own ambition. Right? And I'm telling you he's unfit.’
“Had he been able to challenge Trump, mano a mano on a stage, I wonder what that would have done differently for him,” she added.
She also bloviated that Christie “improved his legacy” and was “the only person who spoke today who mattered, who did anything that was important.” “Nothing that happened in that debate was important,” she chided.
The panel all wondered where Christie would go from there, and they all had one conclusion:
RUHLE: Then where does he go from here? Do we hear from him again?
CHRIS HAYES: He’s going to go make a lot of money doing something.
RACHEL MADDOW: I mean, he’ll be doing what Liz Cheney is doing maybe.
HAYES: He’ll write a book.
REID: Write a book.
RUHLE: Write a book.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s The 11th Hour
January 10, 2024
11:08:35 p.m. Eastern(…)
STEPHANIE RUHLE: The only one who clearly has shown that they were in a fight tonight was Chris Christie. And he was there to bow out, Chris Christie, who spent $12 million, and likely improved his legacy – Joy and I were just talking about that. When he said, right, ‘Trump is unfit to be president, and if you are not willing to say that, you are to.’ He had more impact than the tens of millions of dollars that Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley will have spent, they are going to end up just being unforgettable.
ALEX WAGNER: Unforgettable?
RUHLE: Forgettable! Forgettable.
JOY REID: And it struck me, just – What you’re saying I think is true. I think the problem Chris Christie had is that he never got to actually say those things with Trump on the stage. Right?
I just sometimes think that there is another sort of metaverse where Chris Christie runs the exact same campaign, and speaks really blunt truth that I actually – I'm with Lawrence, I gained a bit of respect for him in a way that he spoke truth to Republicans in their own terms about Donald Trump carrying only about himself, not about them. And about the fact that he is unfit and saying ‘I’m saying this as somebody who knows him and supported him, and supported him for my own ambition. Right? And I'm telling you he's unfit.’
Had he been able to challenge Trump, mano a mano on a stage, I wonder what that would have done differently for him. As it is now, I do think that he improved his legacy. And I agree with you, the only person who spoke today who mattered, who did anything that was important, I think, was Chris Christie. Nothing that happened in that debate was important.
RUHLE: Then where does he go from here? Do we hear from him again?
CHRIS HAYES: He’s going to go make a lot of money doing something.
RACHEL MADDOW: I mean, he’ll be doing what Liz Cheney is doing maybe.
HAYES: He’ll write a book.
REID: Write a book.
RUHLE: Write a book.
MADDOW: He’s now an ex-Republican who’s a never-Trumper, and there is a cadre of them. Do they have an impact?
RUHLE: But they could impact Republican voters where Joe Biden is never going to impact them.
(…)
