Yesterday I wrote about a pair of new polls out of New Hampshire, one of which showed Nikki Haley climbing to within single digits of Donald Trump, 39-32. That was interesting because the same poll showed Chris Christie in 3rd place with 12 percent. It suggested that maybe, if Christie were to drop out of the race, Haley might have a chance at an upset in the primary. But, as of yesterday, it seemed Christie had no intention of getting out of the race. In fact, National Review has a story up this afternoon saying that people were privately pleading with Christie and he was firmly refusing to budge:

“He flat out said: ‘I’m not dropping out,’” says New Hampshire restaurateur Tom Boucher, a former member of Christie’s steering committee who called the former New Jersey governor Sunday morning urging him to bow out of the race and endorse Haley, lest he sabotage his own stated goal of preventing Donald Trump from returning to the White House.

But something must have changed because today word broke that Christie would be making a big announcement this evening. And soon after that there were reports that Christie was in fact about to announce he was getting out of the race.

BREAKING – OUT!

Chris Christie to drop out of presidential race.

via @MarkHalperin

— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) January 10, 2024

For a brief moment, it appeared that Christie was going to graciously step aside and endorse Haley as a way to give her a better chance of beating Trump in one race. But it didn’t last long. Instead, Christie was caught on a hot mic saying that Haley had no chance. “She’s gonna get smoked,” he said, adding, “You and I both know it. She’s not up to this.” The person he was speaking to then brought up the other New Hampshire poll out yesterday which showed her trailing Trump by 20 points.

BREAKING: While waiting for Chris Christie announcement, he can be heard on a hot mic criticizing @NikkiHaley while talking to someone.

“She’s gonna get smoked,” he says. “You and I both know it, she’s not up to this.”

He also claims DeSantis called him, then feed is cut. pic.twitter.com/3Lrz2t6BQ8

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 10, 2024

All I can say is wow! The assignment here was pretty simple. Drop out and graciously endorse Haley. Instead, Christie just told everyone he thinks she’s destined to fail because she’s not up to it. That’s a message which almost certainly will be picked up and used against Haley in the next Donald Trump ad or press release. No doubt Christie will also be asked what Gov. DeSantis was “petrified” about. Was he about to say DeSantis was petrified Christie was endorsing Haley? That would make sense as it would undercut DeSantis who is running a distant second behind Trump in Iowa.

Unfortunately, the audio cut off before we got the explanation. But the other question being debated on X and elsewhere is whether this was really an accident. Maybe it was or maybe Christie just wanted to go out by putting a knife in Haley’s back rather than handing her a lifeline.

Okay, here’s video of the town hall event (see below). A couple minutes into this you can hear Christie speaking faintly but he’s being mostly drowned out by Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” which is playing in the room. It sounds like the same conversation from the hot mic. Then a guy in black comes out from the left side of the frame and yells “Gavin!” to someone at the back of the room, probably the sound man. He draws a finger across his neck indicating he wants him to kill the feed. Then walks to the back when it isn’t cut immediately.

A few minutes later, Christie came out and made a long speech about his desire to tell the truth and say in public what other candidates were in private about Donald Trump. But Christie said he never wanted to just be a message candidate, he wanted to win and it’s now clear that there’s no path for him to win.

“It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination which is why I’m suspending my campaign tonight for President of the United States,” he said. He went on to say that it was the right thing to do because, “I am going to make sure, in no way do I enable Donald Trump ever be President of the United States again.” He added, “That’s more important than my own personal ambition.” He got a round of applause for that.

I watched through most of this and there was no endorsement. He even made a dig at Haley at one point when he brought up the Civil War and said “As we all know that was about slavery.” So it looks like he never intended to endorse only to drop out and potentially give Haley a lane to herself. Here’s the full video.