The Young Turks - TYT Live Reaction to Chris Christie's CNN Town Hall

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

TYT Live Reaction to Chris Christie's CNN Town Hall hosted by John Iadarola. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Okay, but I think we can get started. So, Chris Christie is now done. We just finished his CNN Town Hall. The end there kind of dragged a little bit.

That doesn't mean that I have an overall incredibly negative, you know, view of it. I think there's a little bit of good, a little bit of bad. and we're going to jump through some general reactions as well as some specific areas that he was asked about. I will also let you know that videos on both the Young Turks and the damage report will be going up very soon. As soon as this stream is done, we're going to go about 15 minutes or so for my thoughts. I'm going to be live reacting to, or not live, I guess, un-live, dead reacting to some specific videos. Him attacking Trump, him like pitching himself as being willing to be super direct, and then totally weaseling out of answering very specific questions.

I was pretty disappointed. Now, that's partially because I, for a long time, I think I've been very clear that I see Chris Christie is one of the few chances that this Republican nomination is going to be, like, exciting. It might be fun just with DeSantis getting mocked constantly, but for someone who's actually going to be able to hit Trump hard on both policy, substance, his character, Chris Christie seems like he's got the best chance of that.

and I'm a little bit disappointed to some extent with some of what he said, how he chose to answer questions. But we have a lot here, so why don't we jump into it? Of course, if there are specific things that you want to hear about, feel free. I can see your comments. I can live react to the best of my ability. So I will say my overall approach or my overall reaction to Chris Christie's Town Hall is, this guy is definitely setting himself apart, almost instantly. You watch a couple minutes of it from,

your Nikki Haley's, Tim Scots, Mike DeSanthe, or Mike Pence, all of them are so careful with everything that they say and mostly with the things that they don't say. And that category is broad. They don't want to be specific on a lot of topics. If it's not like red meat, culture war stuff, then they're probably not interested in talking about it. They don't want to attack Donald Trump. That's, you know, hitting sideways or whatever. They just want to focus on Biden. As Chris Christie pointed out, a lot of them are scared. And I think that that's right. I think that some of them are scared that if they attack Trump,

he will absolutely nuke them from orbit. And they're probably right to think that. But I also think he might have been able to shake a little bit of their support if you pointed out that many of these other candidates are not just afraid of Trump. Some of them, it's not fear. They honestly have no interest in attacking him because they're not actually trying to beat him. These are people that are technically running for president, but not so that they can get the nomination and become president.

they have absolutely no hope of that. And I mean that from a realistic point of view, but also inside their heart, they have no hope of actually becoming president. What they're doing is they're getting in there, they're raising their profile, they're trying it in the Trump administration. But it's even more insidious than that.

Every election has those candidates, the people who are like running, but they really just want to launch a podcast or a book or something like that or become, you know, Secretary of Transportation or something. But in this case, I think it's maybe more insidious. I think that you have Ron DeSantis who actually wants to beat Trump

and I think that he knows that he needs to take all of the vote that's not already locked up by Donald Trump and I think that they think, well, if we get in here then we muddy the waters a little bit. You know, maybe Trump sees that, maybe appreciates it. Maybe they even talked about it behind the scenes. I obviously have no direct evidence of that, but I would be suspicious of that.

Anyway, like, to point out that they're afraid is good, it maybe shakes the support. but to point out that they're not really running that this is a scam i think it'd be successful too so anyway he gets out there he's mostly willing to say things that won't necessarily be popular amongst the right-wing base i think that that's good the other candidates aren't willing to do that literally at all and i will say and feel for disagree do you disagree chris christie for all that that for all that look i'm sure i disagree with them almost everything politically and probably behind the scenes is probably a bad guy,

Burge Kate and all that, although he did talk about that. We'll get to it. He seems more like a real person. Like he seems like he's actually trying to answer things. I'm not saying that he doesn't have lines. They all have lines, but I don't know. He seems more like a real person. Mike Pence is always so fake gravitas and

all of them hide behind their lines. Ronda Santas hide behind his lines. I'm not saying that Chris Christie's got like an overabundance of charisma, but I think he has more than Ronda Santas. But I will say, that it doesn't seem like the room was buying it as much as even I was. Because did you notice that overall, even when he'd have sort of good lines, good attacks, there wasn't really much of a reaction from the crowd.

When he would make jokes, you don't really hear laughs, how much applause total? If you count up all of the seconds of applause, how many seconds were there? I don't have an answer. I have no GD idea. But I don't think that it was a lot. Now, it is possible that the audience wasn't miced in the same way. But it's also possible that, you know, he's polling at 1 or 2%. Maybe max 1 or 2% of the audience liked him.

Now, look, I personally think that if CNN is going to bring in a whole bunch of extra Trump fans to make the Trump audience extra Trumpy, then you could probably bring in a couple of Chris Christie fans, but it doesn't really feel like they did that, which definitely hurt him. Now, the most exciting part of the race, and I'll be focusing on some of my videos, is he was definitely willing to attack Donald Trump. In a variety of good ways, he did not go down the entire list that I would have. I think there are some areas that he should be more willing to attack on. But I want to jump into some of the specific ways that he attacked Donald Trump. I will say, though, before we jump into more of this, definitely if you haven't already hit the like button, do that.

I will save all of my most witty and incisive comments until we get enough likes. I'm kidding. Anyway, one of the most effective, I think, attacks against Donald Trump, or what should be most effective in a reasonable world, is reminding everyone that Donald Trump is riding a wave of three elections where his effect on the Republican Party was incredibly negative. So he pointed out in 2018, they got their... butts whooped. In 2020, oops, he lost the election and they got their butts whooped. And then in 2022, they technically took control of the House, but with an incredibly narrow margin, way narrower than anyone else thought they would, largely in part due to Trump. I mean, the fact that they didn't

take the Senate, that is definitely on Donald Trump. And so, look, obviously Donald Trump and his chosen candidates, your Kerry Lakes and your Herschel walkers or whatever are always going to deny that any of the responsibility rests on them. But how many elections in a row can you lose before people who desperately want Republicans to be in charge think, well, this isn't great. This isn't really helping us to accomplish our agenda. Now, Donald Trump, of course, has done everything he can to defuse or pre-diffuse that sort of argument by making them believe that all of these losses are not on him, that they're the fault of someone else. Okay, okay. Lose another election. Honestly, look, I don't want Donald Trump to be the nominee.

I certainly don't want him to do the president. But if he is the nominee, and if he loses the race, okay, I got a lot of fun in 2020. I'm ready to party again. We could go down that road. Unfortunately, that road also leads to coups and stuff, so that's the negative side of it. So he attacked him on being a loser. He attacked him on being a loser. He attacked him on being, a child constantly he attacked him on needing a mirror he attacked him obviously on the documents i'm not going to talk hey guys thank you for stopping by i'm not going to talk too much about the commentary about the arraignment just because a lot of our videos are going to be touching on that but i will say that while he did the same thing basically that bill bar did over the weekend saying look i

feel like there were a lot of sham investigations of donald trump but this one is serious Rhetorically, it might not be the worst strategy for winning over some Republicans, but he admitted that it looked bad. And the thing that I thought was interesting for him, obviously he has some experience, you know, as a prosecutor, he pointed out the reasons that he thinks that as damning as the evidence, particularly of obstruction of justice is in the indictment that we saw, that it is likely that some of their best evidence is not in there.

And that, I can't wait for that. I hope that he's right. He seems pretty sure of himself. Now, I don't want you to believe that I think that it was great. Hold on a second. Mama Zee says, why don't you guys blame CNN more? Wait a second, Mama Zee. Are you saying that you think that we don't criticize CNN? Did you see our commentary of Donald Trump's town hall?

The mocking that we did of Chris Licht being fired from CNN. No, we're very critical of CNN. I have no interest in CNN or any of the others, really. But anyway, okay, hold on a second. Edward Grant, understand we're doing a live reaction. YouTube limits that to 720P. That's not up to us, unfortunately. But anyway, I don't want you to believe that I think that he did an amazing job.

There were definitely some areas where he was not willing to, I think, live up to his brand. He would have you believe that he's a straight talker, that he's willing to say things that are unpopular. And some areas he was. But there were others where it was a weasily sort of politician sort of that we were getting. So on guns, he didn't want to say that he'd restrict guns in, like, literally any way. That was an area where he apparently, thank you, Moussey, that was an area where apparently he thinks that he would lose too many Republicans.

So he talked about mental health. He said that criminals don't follow the law, and he said, I don't want to infringe on people's liberties. Now, he was cagey enough around it where, because he was talking to a guy who had lost a son, I believe, in the Vegas shooting, where if you want to believe that were he to become president and were the Democrats to take over, because obviously the Republicans are going to do it, and the Democrats were to pass some sort of gun control legislation that maybe he would sign it, I think that he left

you room to believe that. But if you want to believe that he's going to take the initiative and be a leader, no, I don't believe that at all. Based on what we saw, I have no faith that he would do that so on the guns i thought it's really bad he didn't do a great he he maybe it's ridiculous to say he didn't do a good job of differentiating himself from the other candidates he didn't want to differentiate himself from the other candidates um on abortion in particular man that dude did not want to say anything about what he would do he hinted at some values maybe but that's it according to him he just wants to find out what people think and he's going to wait for the entire country to create a consensus. What the hell are you talking about, man? First of all,

it's inconsistent with everything else that you did to try to pitch yourself as some sort of like vigorous, you know, head of the executive branch, that you'd whip the Congress into shape, you'd get stuff done. But all of a sudden, when it comes to abortion, I don't, let's see if there's a really good Twitter threat about it. I really have no thoughts. Also, what the hell are you talking about? Are you new to America? You think that suddenly there's going to be some sort of massive consensus? Look, overall, I think that there's a fairly strong consensus for abortion rights that consensus has even won out in a number of red states since Roe v. Wade was destroyed, but he doesn't accept that as a consensus. What he's talking about is unanimity. He's talking

about 90% plus. That doesn't exist. That doesn't exist. He knows that doesn't exist. What he wants to do is he doesn't want to say that he wouldn't sign, you know, a six-week ban or a full ban, honestly, because he would lose Republicans. He doesn't want to say that he would do it because then it would really hurt his chance of becoming president if somehow he becomes the nominee, which is a pipe dream, but that seems to be the thinking. He knows how unpopular that would be. So like most Republicans, he's running away from what he seems to want you to believe his actual position is, but he won't clearly state it. again a weasily sort of thing to do and he leaves you with uh he won't even say if he thinks that

like desantis's particular motion was good or not he said i want the states to decide i want to see what the states do okay well what do you think about what this state did i don't know i'm not interested i don't want to talk about it but you just said that that was going to be your whole approach so anyway it was it was super weasily i think it undercut the brand that he was trying to sell there. Now there are a couple of other things that if you maybe are a centrist or something and you think, oh, well, Chris Christie is a little bit more in the center, maybe he's a little bit more reasonable. I do want you to recall that there's good and bad to that. So Chris Christie did not like demonize trans people in this town hall. Now granted, he wasn't asked about trans people,

so it would be weird if he did. But other Republicans would have willingly brought it up. They would have talked about Bud Light and they would have talked about Target. we don't know if he would have had he been asked i doubt it but what you also get is what did he say when he was asked about social security medicare and medicade everything that you'd expect an establishment republican to say uh we're gonna means test it which look is that the worst thing that he could have said no that theoretically implies that some rich people won't get the money but also you you understand long term philosophically why that's not a solution in terms of the ability to raise enough money, but also, he gave the example of Mark Zuckerberg, not needing the money.

Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg also doesn't care about the money. But what you theoretically have, if you take it away from all of the wealthy, is even less reason for them to tolerate its existence in the first place. It's not a solution. It's a thing you say to make yourself seem populist, but it doesn't really accomplish much. More importantly, though, he also said that he was fine with raising the retirement age, of young people, not of older people, and he couched it. as that that wouldn't be fair, which he's not wrong, it wouldn't be fair, but it also would be

horrible politics to tell people, oh, by the way, you thought you were going to retire in three years, screw that at seven, enjoy a few more years in the salt mines, so obviously you're not going to do that. But what he does think is fair, according to him, and clearly he doesn't think his terrible politics, is if you're like 20 years away from a retirement, then we'll raise it for you. And what he said was, and I don't even think it's a bad, way to try to make people accept this, I don't agree with it, is, well, if you have 20 years to prep, then that's fine. Here's what I would say to that. I don't give a, I just, I can't swear, okay, I'm going to restrain myself. I don't care if I can prep in 20 years. Who the

hell are you to tell me that I should do years more of labor before I finally get to put down the plow? Who are you, Chris Christie, to say that, rather than pursuing one of the other solutions to the problem we find ourselves in in terms of funding these programs, that I should have to work more, that you should have to work years more, literally years. Okay, okay. Because here's the thing. Did you notice what he didn't say? And also, by the way, if Anderson Cooper is going to be there to ask follow-up questions, this would have been a great time for a follow-up question. Why are you pretending that the only way to extend the timeline for when those programs will be solvent is to means test it and raise

the retirement age. Here's a crazy idea. Raise taxes. I'm not even saying some crazy new tax. You could literally just take away the totally needless income cap on contributions to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. You could do that, and it's solved for literally decades. You could do that, And you and I would not have to work for years longer, everyone you know working for years longer. But of course he didn't bring that up, because that's what you get with a Republican, an establishment Republican. He's not necessarily going to demonize trans people. He's not going to talk about Bud Light or whatever. But he also is going to deliver for the rich, and the rich do not want higher taxes.

Anyway, I will say he tried to, I guess, like, thread the needle on funding to Ukraine um he seemed to imply that he would uh be willing to continue funding for Ukraine but also and I can't wait to get into this into a video hey moving dear death how's it going uh he seemed to indicate that the reason we should do it is because screw China okay okay I guess that's interesting that that's how you think you can win over Republicans he's not even necessarily wrong uh like xenophobia towards China's a pretty strong motivator to action for Republicans, so I don't know, maybe it'll work for him. And look, one of the areas where I'll give him the most credit, though, is on his unwillingness

to hedge his bets on saying, hey, Chase, I was going, hedge his bets on the 2020 election not being stolen. He was very clear about that, but, and this is a preview for you, you should definitely watch the video when I put it out, I also think if you are going to try to tell Republicans, the hard truth about the 2020 election the way he did it his strategy was entirely wrong it was almost like designed to be ineffective i don't think that it was but it seemed like it from the outside so um and on a topic that is so important where your ability to potentially win over maga voters or not hinges so much on that i would have been more careful he was willing to him not getting an immigration bill passed for four years. He criticized them on the wall. He also

said, by the way, that he would finish building the wall. So that's effective. But anyway, I'm going to close by saying, how did my view of Christy change from the start of this to the end of it? Hey, Catherine, how's it going? I am still excited for him to be in the debates because I think that he will attack Trump. I will say, though, while he is more natural and organic in answering questions than many of the other candidates, and he's more willing to attack Trump. He did stumble sometimes, clapping for chlamydia, dude, why are you so hot? I don't know. I don't know.

I thank you. I'm looking into it. I should ask ChatGBT, BT, but I appreciate the question. It's a good one. Anyway, he did stumble sometimes on, like, lines that could be good, and I wonder to what extent that caused the lack of applause and the lack of, you know, laughter and clapping and all of that. He needs to be a little bit better at it. I think that he's better than most of them,

but if his entire point in being here is to be that like cruise missile directed directly at Trump, he's got to tighten it up, be more aggressive and also got to be like a little bit cruel or a little bit more underhanded. That's the advice that I gave to Ron DeSantis a couple weeks ago. Maybe I'll fit it into my reaction videos coming up a little bit later on. In any event, I do want to thank you for joining us for this live reaction of the Chris Christie Town Hall.

We're going to be doing these, if not in studio stuff, for a lot of these town halls, and especially once we get to the debates. So definitely look forward to that. We are just gearing up for this 2024 election. It is a crucial one. It is already, in some ways, a depressing one, but we're going to be giving you the coverage that I think we need. More videos are going to be coming up later on tonight,

on both the Young Turks and on the damage report. So subscribe to both. If you're a member, even better. That map, by the way, is the entire world of Game of Threat. because I'm a nerd. But anyway, thank you for joining me, and I'll see you soon. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.