It’s been a rough year for Chris Christie. Knocked out of the presidential race, Christie passed over the Trump Dignity Loss Event Horizon from which no one can ever return and became a mere husk of his former self. Christie became the first and canonical Trump Dignity Wraith. No more the bullyish, swaggering New Jersey tough guy or the poster boy for the male GOP id, Christie was reduced to being Donald Trump’s footman, carrying bags, tossing out “You got It“s when ordered back home, taking taunts about scarfing Oreos, making burger runs at Donald’s request, literally begging to be chosen for veep before being tossed on the Trump bone heap in favor of Mike Pence.
This week we had the first solid evidence of what many long suspected: Christie knew about the ‘BridgeGate’ traffic jams when they were happening and why they were happening. Any political future Christie might have had outside of being Trump’s butler is now severely damaged and quite likely over. But through it all, he had the sufferance of Bruce.
As you know, Christie is the ultimate Bruce Springsteen fan. Maybe not judged by the more admirable qualities. But in terms of devotion and fanboyism he puts almost anyone to shame. Christie took on great political baggage for what was actually one of his more admirable moments, his immediate reaction to Hurricane Sandy just a week before the 2012 presidential election. Christie kicked into high gear and literally and figuratively embraced President Obama, leading many Republicans to charge that he’d helped tip the election to the president in the final week. But his lifetime dreams were realized when on the last day before the election, he got to talk to Bruce.
As then White House Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed at the time, the day before the election, Monday November 4th, 2012, the president was campaigning with Bruce in Wisconsin and Ohio. During an Air Force One call from Obama to Christie to check in on the course of the Sandy recovery effort, Obama gave Christie the greatest gift: putting The Boss on the phone to talk to his greatest fan. One can only imagine what a moment it was, getting Bruce’s attention and admiration. A month later he got to shake Bruce’s hand at a Sandy relief fundraiser.
Even a couple years later, after Bruce had ribbed him on Jimmy Fallon’s show with a parody version of ‘Born to Run’ based on Bridgegate, Christie held out hope that he and Bruce might one day truly be friends. “I don’t think I’ve ever been under the illusion as a Bruce fan, of his music, that that meant that he and I were necessarily simpatico on a number of other issues,” Christie told a townhall in Port Monmouth in early 2014, “I still live in hope that someday, even as he gets older and older, he’s going to wake up and go, ‘Yeah, maybe he’s a good guy. He’s alright, you know. We can be friends. He told me we were friends actually, a few … a year and a half ago.’”
But, lo, things have changed. In Brian Hiatt’s new interview with Springsteen, just published in Rolling Stone, The Boss talks about his life, about a “tragic” presidential election. But when it comes to Christie, he won’t even speak of him …
In a sunny sitting room where windows overlook the green sprawl of his property, Springsteen discusses the genesis of the book, his struggles with depression, the future of his career and much more, staying silent on only one topic. When I mention my horror at the sight of Donald Trump–endorsing New Jersey governor Chris Christie pumping his fist and singing along to the lines “poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king” at a recent concert in Brooklyn, Springsteen laughs until he turns red. When he catches his breath, he says, “I have no comment.”
Sad!
