Former u. S. Attorney and ran President Trumps transition team. And author of let me finish. And his time along side President Trump. Governor christie, thanks for joining us. Gov. Christie happy to be with you. You are one of the few people that the president listens to on the outside on political matters and i love this article that you were at a come to jesus meeting at the president s golf club with President Trump. How did that go and did the president decide to make any changes with his campaign . Gov. Christie i have taken the position that the consultations that i have with the president are between me and the president. I will say this, the president is really focused on the next 95 days, focused on trying to make sure he lays out the vision of where he wants the next four years to be and i had time to spend with him and discuss things from where i sit and for me to help him and articulate the issues he wants to articulate and that is what the campaign will need to do. What is he doing right and what is he doing wrong . I think for the most part, in the last week or two, i think his focus on the coronavirus has been good. I think his focus on encouraging the people to wear masks and let them know we will be in this for a while and remain strong and resolute are important. Listen, i think the biggest to he needs to do is articulate a vision in the next four years to contrast with the Biden Campaign for those of us on the east coast, it is a seinfeld campaign, campaign about nothing and campaign dont reelect donald trump and what joe biden wants to do in any great detail except for his 110paged manifesto with bernie sanders. Listened to the way Biden Campaign is being received by progressives in the Democratic Party and one of my sunday show, it seems they arent happy about the Biden Campaign. And i think those are things that the president has to make sure that he contrasts by being very bold and direct about what hell do over the next four years. Lets pause on that. I was with the president in texas this week and not talking about Vice President biden on the stump for the most part and talking about the Racial Injustice protests and talking about portland and talking about representative owe cast yeoh ortez. Keith keith i think the spotlight is what you want to talk about the next few four years. Biden isnt talking about that at all. Joe biden presidency will be like and i dont know is he going to move to the white house out of wilmington . I dont think he has promised that. Will he move or too afraid to move. This is a campaign where the president has to lay out his vision and when he does that, that will force in my view Vice President biden to lay out his buyary choice and when you have that choice. He cannot win a why cant he win a referendum election . Gov. Christie it is hard for any incumbent especially when you are going through some crises. Even the democrats would not blame President Trump for creating the coronavirus, i think even they will back off on that. Economicmic rectus crisis that has occurred, not his creation. But when you have those twin thees and you add onto it racial unrest in the country, which has been caused by two factors, number one, the murder of george floyd and that being an indicator of Police Misconduct in many places and , two, the coronavirus lockdown. I think all of the tension and stress and depression that that caused in the country, i mean mental depression, those two things causing a third crisis, it is very hard for an incumbent to win a referendum case weather is a crisis. You need a situation on a referendum case like Ronald Reagan had in 1984 where everything was going wonderfully the country was at peace, prosperity was at unprecedented levels, and then it a referendum race carese the public does not who the upper it is, they love the president. When there are crises going on thats not going to happen. , i dont know you dont want about the details of the meeting but that scene of you and thed kushner Campaign Manager sitting across from President Trump, having a conversation you have to wonder , as a reporter here, is the candidate on the same page as his own campaign when it comes to all the things you are talking about, messaging, strategy . Gov. Christie im not going to get into the specifics, but let me answer the question. I know as a reporter you are curious. The answer is yes, he is on the same page as the people advising him now and i think you will continue to see that happen over the course of the next 95 days. Most americans dont know bill. You call him steph. He has been one of your political aides for years, he has run your gubernatorial races. Of how tos plan jumpstart the Trump Campaign . Gov. Christie that is the great thing, i dont think people see that is his role to jumpstart the campaign. I think his biggest asset is his work ethic. I have never seen anybody in politics to work as hard as him. Said inhe things i have the aftermath of his appointment was bail there will not be a detail that will fall through the practice fall through the cracks with bill in charge. He will work 18 hours a day. He will inspire the people around him to work almost as hard. And he will make sure that every detail is attended to. And one of his big strengths is voter identification and voter turnout toward turnout. He was a field director for the some campaign in 2016 and he saw the result of that in some of the key swing states where the turnout for donald trump was much higher than anticipated. And i believe its because, in large measure, because of the work of bill. What the president has done is got himself a point and a half or two by having a real pro in charge of the campaign and i think the rest of it its going to be up to the candidate. Bill will not win or lose the race for the president , the president well, but bill will give him a much better chance to win because of his hard work and attention to detail and the experience he has had in managing republican races in a blue state like new jersey. He knows how to go into swing states, identify the persuadable voters, and expose them to what the president s plans are in the next four years. There is a person from 2016 in bill, now running the campaign. Jared kushner is there, you are there as an outside advisor. Any chance the president brings back steve bannon . Gov. Christie i hope not. I dont think steve will be productive. Played ine role he 2016 was overplayed and overblown. I think the people who deserve real credit for 2016 includes folks like Kellyanne Conway and Reince Priebus, stephen miller. Those are the people who really, along with Jared Kushner, ran that campaign and steve has taken more credit than he deserves. I think that would be a very, very bad day for the Trump Campaign to have steve bannon back in any official or unofficial way. When thencandidate trump was on the road in summer 2016 and turned from bannon and conway. He is on the ropes now according to almost every poll. Do you see him taking any dramatic action to bring in somebody like steve bannon if not steve bannon . Gov. Christie he did take dramatic action. He hired bail. That is pretty dramatic action to change your Campaign Manager about 120 days out from an election campaign. Secondly [indiscernible] i believe he is doing digital work for the campaign. He is still working on the digital aspect, which is how he came into the campaign. He was restricted to doing digital work, digital advertising. His background and experience and he is good at it. I am sure he will continue to do that for the campaign, but now at bills direction. He still has Kellyanne Conway, next to him in the white house every day. I can guarantee she is providing him with great advice in providing bail with good advice when he seeks it. Kelly and is there, she never left. Jared, stephen miller, she is the only other original white house person of significance left other than the president and Vice President. Herink kelly and had shown staying power and value to the president and she will continue to show that privately, in her consultations with the campaign, and publicly, because i think you will see her in more of a public presence on tv as the campaign gets to the point where the public is really paying attention. Anyonethe president or close to him discussed with you in recent weeks the idea of leaving mike pence off the republican ticket . Gov. Christie no. In campaignong with war, replacing the Vice President of candidate goes along with a brokered convention. Every four years we talk about it, the media talks about it with anticipation and it hasnt happened since 1960. And its not happening now. In terms of a brokered convention. Replacing the Vice President of candidate will not happen. The president has Great Respect for the Vice President. By the way no one votes for , number two on the ticket, bob. With a guy like donald trump, the ultimate alpha on top of the ticket, who is saying, but if he changed it from mike pence to someone else, then i would vote for him, thinking that that person would have enormous influence on the administration . I dont think so. Donald trump is in charge and thats why the Vice President of candidate is not in a place where you would want to change it for political reasons and the Vice President has done a very good job and from what the president tells me amongre is no discussion kushner or other top officials about the idea . Gov. Christie i have spoken to the president about it as late as last weekend, he has Great Respect for the Vice President. That is moving forward. Has debate prep started . Gov. Christie not formally, it has not. I have had conversations with the president about it, but its a little bit too early to start that. You are careful of saying you did not play the role of the antagonist in debate prep in 2016 you put in a counter during those informal sessions. Did you expect to have a similar ball this time around . Gov. Christie if the president asks me to do that, i am happy to help him anyway i can to get ready for the debates. That will be up to the president. But as i said before, i continue to be someone who offers my advice and counsel to the president , so i am ready to be there in whatever goal he may want me to play. Aboutyour book, we talk the both effective debate prep sessions in 2016 where when you and Reince Priebus were the only two talking in the room, so the president focused on two people rather than a whole room of advisers. Is that still your advice to him this time . Gov. Christie absolutely. It is tough enough for a candidate to get ready for a president ial debate, but harder for a president to get ready for a debate because he is also running the federal government. And you look all the way back to jerry ford in 1976, the modern era of president ial debates from 1976 to whenever an incumbent 2020, president has been involved, he has never won the first debate. Not once. Because of how difficult it is to prep a president for debate, for the president to take his mind off of the governing and the politics to get a president to believe that somebody that isnt president could beat them in a debate. Those are all challenges that donald trump will face because barack obama faced it and lost to mitt romney, which bush lost to john kerry, bill clinton faced it, lost to bob dole. You go back as far as jimmy carter with Ronald Reagan and gerald ford with jimmy carter. It has been a pattern in a pattern i am sure the president hopes he will be able to break on september 29. How are the negotiations with the commission on president ial debates . Is the president committed to showing up to all three debates . Gov. Christie the president would love to have more debate if they can work out the timing. Remember something, a lot of people are going to start voting before september 29. They will not see one president ial debate by then, seems ridiculous. I think we need to move the date up or add additional debates between the president and Vice President , given the phenomenon of early voting that occurs in so many states. You will absolutely see the president onstage stage for all three debates. I am sure he would love to have more of them. Is that in discussion right now . Having an earlier debate . Is there actually a chance of that happening . Usually the c. P. D. Is pretty firm with its plan with three president ial and one Vice President ial. Gov. Christie that is up to the folks at the campaign to one those negotiations. Im a bystander in that regard. Those are just my views given what i know about the president and i think the president would want to have more debates rather than less and sooner rather than later because of the early voting phenomenon and no one should be able to caste a vote in this country before hearing a president ial debate, if you are going to have them. The pandemic hovers over the entire campaign. Would you advise the president to do more with the defense production act at this point . Gov. Christie i had advised that back in the beginning in march, to invoke the defense production act, and he did on ventilators and ppe. Also on reagents for testing. I dont know whether we need it right now. The only area i think we need it is reagents for testing and whether or not there is enough time to invoke that and make it meaningful is an open question. I believe that to the president and his team to beard and his team. I think that is one of the things that has displeased the public about the handling of the pandemic. He was very aggressive in terms of banning travel from china and europe. On certain aspects he was very, very aggressive. I wish he had been more aggressive in others. We are where we are now. We have to continue, now people need to understand the risks that are involved and make sure they are being smart. We dont need to close the whole country down again. That would be an overreaction. We need to reopen the country and get the economy going get , people back to work. You saw in new jersey in the last two months, opioid deaths go up 2 over last year. Domestic violence complaint go up. Suicides go up. Those are all connected to this shutdown in the shutdown being so complete that it is ruining peoples lives and ability to make a living, pay their bills. I dont think we need to go back to Something Like that. We need to reopen and people need to wear, be smart, wash hands, take proper precautions to keep themselves safe and most importantly we need to shelter , vulnerable populations. If you have a comorbidity, if you are elderly, that you have to be much more careful than someone in their mid20s. Should the president be wearing a Face Covering more frequently and should he mandate masks nationwide . Gov. Christie the president decided not to do national mandates and to let the governors make their own choices. That is a philosophical judgment he has made. He is now saying everyone should be wearing a mask. You will see the president we have to expose the people in a larger way during the campaign, you will see the president wearing a mask more frequently than you have seen it in the past. I dont think he needs to wear it in the white house. We didnt see it in texas. Gov. Christie frequently, not every time. You are not going to see it in the white house, which would be ridiculous, the president has tested frequently. In the end, setting a good example by wearing a mask would be the right thing to do. I think the president will do that. There are cases inside the white house. Gov. Christie he has been tested himself a mask is to protect others, not to protect yourself. The mask is not the type of mask that will bar anything coming in. About, ifre talking the president is being tested a dayntly, numerous times , than him having it on is highly unlikely. Is torew cuomo says, it protect others, not yourself. If that is the case, the president wearing it inside the white house would be more for show than anything else. Outside, he should be wearing it. Let me be clear, i believe it is the right example to set to wear a mask. You can debate the efficacy of it in certain circumstances but you cant abate the fact that it sets a good example for the american people. You were up and down with Jared Kushner over the years, what is your assessment of his handling of the administrations testing strategy . I dont know is it so that jared is the person in charge of that, i dont know. Im not there every day. I cant make that evaluation. , know jared works really hard all the things he is doing for the president every day. In terms of judging that stuff, im not there and im not in a position to judge. You have often said that the president is not being well served by his staff. You have said this over the years. What is your grade of mark meadows, the new chief of staff, so far . Gov. Christie incomplete, so far. He has only been there for a couple months now. He is still getting the ropes, getting used to everything and working with this president. It is much different experience than being one of his supporters on capitol hill. Im sure the chief is learning that now. I think it is how he is going to handle the governing issues and advising the president on those in the midst of a campaign. I dont think we will be able to have a complete grade on chief of staff meadows until after the election is over. He has been there since earlier than since earlier in the year, it is been more than a couple months. Gov. Christie he didnt resign from congress until it was april or may. It has only been a few months. Lets give him time to get acclimated there and working. I have had great interactions w