to a very special edition of outfront. the breaking news, chris christie drops out. the bombshell coming just two hours before cnn s gop debate, the last debate before the first votes of the 2024 election. i m erin burnett in new york, and welcome the our viewers here and around the world. and i m anderson cooper in des moines, iowa. behind me, the stage is set for the debate tonight between nikki haley and ron desantis. and christie s surprise announcement just raised the stakes here in a big way. here is chris christie in his own words. 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. the question, of course, who will christie endorse. conventional wisdom says nikki haley. but christie was caught on a hot mic right before his announcement saying this about haley. she s going to get smoked. and you and i both know it. she is not up to this. well, obvi
her team is creating a ground game in south carolina. it is a tremendous uphill battle. but chris christie also said something last week, which is if it s trump versus biden, biden is going to sweep the floor with him. the numbers don t bear that out. i think he is taking a gamble here rather than the more pragmatic decision of trying to support someone in the primary because he is putting all his money on biden. and that s just not what the poles show. all right. good news is we find out next monday. right. we don t have to wait that long. we ll find out something. we don t know what. as the debate kicks off, this now colors the entire situation. so much pressure. the biggest debate so far ahead of the first votes. next, we re following the breaking news of chris christie dropping out of the race, the impact, because he was trump s fiercest critic. is trump actually worried about christie dropping out or not? and then evangelical voters, so crucial for this debate tonigh
he would have put himself first before this country. and anyone who is unwilling to say that he is unfit to be president of the united states is unfit themselves. so now, of course, the question is what happens next. now i talked to some folks from his campaign, and they tell me they re going dark for the next few days. they don t have a plan to announce any sort of endorsement or anything like that. you played some of the audio from that hot mic moment that was happening. those comments were actually to a man named wayne mcdonald, who heads chris christie s new hampshire campaign here. and those comments were made essentially as he was informing them of what he was about to do, and what at that point was just minutes. how that reverberates into any potential endorsement in the future, we will see. but just last month, i was sitting down with chris christie, literally looking him face-to-face. i had brought up some of the
that the trump team has to worry about. do you see christie endorsing somebody before iowa? i mean, it didn t sound like it tonight, at least in the hot mic moments. he was caught backstage saying she is going get smoked. we all know that. how do you say that and then that get publicized around the world and you go out and endorse somebody. we don t have the context of exactly where she is going to get smoked. just pointing that out. and the speech he gave tonight was as much about his opponents as trump, his non-trump opponents. i don t know. it didn t seem like it. i heard kristen reporting on tonight memo that the trump campaign issued. i tend to agree with them. i think a few people are going to flow towards haley. but a lot of people were looking for a pure anti-trump campaign. well, she is not giving them that. she is out promising to pardon donald trump. so if you were somebody who was all in on the chris christie message we have to sweep trump aside. there is no equivoc
and welcome back to this special edition of outfront. you re looking at live pictures out of iowa, where in less than two hours, ron desantis and nikki haley are going to be on that cnn debate stage that you are looking at right now. we are following the big breaking news that impacts this crucial debate, and that is the loudest critic of trump in the race, chris christie just announcing he is dropping out. a very surprising in terms of the timing. now trump is celebrating christie s exit. kristen holmes is of course talking to her trump sources. and so kristen, what is the real reaction here? trump was quick to post on social media and seize on the hot mic moments that christie had there. but what is he really thinking? well, erin, when it comes to donald trump, usually there are multiple things that can be true at once. when it comes to celebrating, there is some glee among the former president and his allies