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The Villages
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Controversial ex-N.J. governor tied to President Trump coming to The Villages

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s new book offers a ‘no holds-barred’ account of the 2016 presidential election and the inter-workings in the Trump camp leading up to the victory over Hillary Clinton.

A controversial political figure tightly intertwined with President Trump’s administration is coming to Barnes & Noble in The Villages.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will be at the highly popular bookstore in Lake Sumter Landing on Saturday at 4 p.m. to sign copies of his newest book titled “Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics,” which was released late last month. The book promises to deliver a “no-holds-barred” account of his rise to power in New Jersey and his insights on the president’s inner circle.

Christie, who stunned many in the Republican Party when he endorsed Donald Trump after dropping out of the 2016 presidential race, points out that he and Trump had been friends for many years. And he claims that he “understood the future president as well as anyone in the political arena.”

Ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he and Donald Trump have been friends for many years and he ‘understood the future president as well as anyone in the political arena.’

Christie quickly became one of Trump’s most trusted advisers, was tapped to run his transition team and came very close to be being named his vice presidential running mate, according to the book’s overview.

But there was controversy brewing, and the day after Trump’s surprising victory over Hillary Clinton, Christie was cut loose, with his plan for the transition apparently never even being considered. Christie says in the book that he was officially fired by former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon but he knew the order came from someone else and he pushed the issue until Bannon told him it came from Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner.

Ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, left, says he was removed from the president’s transition team by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, center, because he put his father, Charles, in prison years earlier when he was a federal prosecutor.

That prompted Christie to respond in his new book and share his side of the Kushner saga – an ordeal that had started years earlier when as a federal prosecutor Christie put Kushner’s powerful father, Charles, behind bars on charges that included tax fraud and election law violations. And, Christie claims, his ouster was nothing more than the younger Kushner getting revenge.

“Let Me Finish” also promises to tell “with the kind of bluntness few politicians can match” Christie’s takes on the “ego-driven battles for Trump’s attention among figures like Bannon, Corey Lewandowksi, Reince Priebus, Kellyanne Conway, Jeff Sessions and Paul Manafort.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says there were ‘ego-driven’ battles for President Trump’s attention by the likes of Steve Bannon, Corey Lewandowksi, Reince Priebus, Kellyanne Conway, Jeff Sessions and Paul Manafort.

Readers also will learn about Christie’s own “hot-button issues” from his years as a Republican governor overseeing a Democratic state, along with what really went down during the Bridgegate scandal, where a Christie staff member and political appointees colluded to create gridlock in Fort Lee by shutting down toll lanes on the George Washington Bridge during the morning rush hour.

It was believed that the actions were taken as retribution against the borough’s Democratic mayor because he hadn’t supported Christie’s candidacy in the 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial race.

Ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie discusses the controversial ‘Bridgegate’ scandal in his new book titled ‘Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics.’

When Christie arrives Saturday, he will become one in a long line of high-profile authors who have visited Florida’s Friendliest Hometown and signed books at the Lake Sumter Landing Barnes & Noble in the past year. The others include:

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