A controversial political figure and a former conservative television co-host are coming to Barnes & Noble in The Villages.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will be at the highly popular bookstore in Lake Sumter Landing next month. And in April, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who is known to viewers worldwide for her roles on “The View” and “Fox & Friends,” will be there as well.
Both Christie and Hasselbeck are touring the country promoting their new books. Christie’s latest work is titled “Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics” and is scheduled to be released Jan. 29. He’ll be at Barnes & Noble to sign copies on Saturday, Feb. 16 at 4 p.m.
Hasselbeck’s new book is named “Point of View: A Fresh Look at Work, Faith, and Freedom” and will be released March 26. She is scheduled to be at the bookstore to sign copies on Wednesday, April 3 at 2 p.m.
Christie, who stunned many in the Republican Party when he endorsed Donald Trump after dropping out of the 2016 presidential race, 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 points out that he and Trump had been friends for many years and he “understood the future president as well as anyone in the political arena.” He quickly became one of Trump’s most trusted advisers, was tapped to run his transition team and came very close to being named his 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 – 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.
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 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.
Readers 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.
Hasselbeck, who first rose to prominence after appearing on the second season of “Survivor,” is best perhaps best known for her role of representing the conservative viewpoint on “The View” from 2003-13.
In August 2006, Hasselbeck got into heated debate when she opposed the Food and Drug Administration’s plan to sell the “morning-after pill” as an over-the-counter drug, stating that she believed “life begins at the moment of conception.”
In May 2007, she got into an argument with co-host Rosie O’Donnell over the war in Iraq. And in October 2007, a tangle with co-host Whoopi Goldberg erupted when Hasselbeck suggested that Sen. Hillary Clinton’s plan to provide a $5,000 savings bond to every child at birth would lead to fewer abortions because the mothers would want to keep the money.
Hasselbeck, who is married to current sports commentator and former NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck, says in “Point of View” that through her nearly two decades of broadcasting, she learned the necessity of getting the point of view of the person being interviewed on a particular topic or experience. She says that doing so allowed her to see “issues and truths” through others’ eyes.
Hasselbeck also takes readers through her national celebrity days to her newest role as Chief Breakfast Officer for her children and talks about how she sometimes saw things differently than how God had intended for her to see them.
“The path back to His point of view was sometimes rocky but always revealing,” she says.
Finally, Hasselbeck shares with readers the many different viewpoints she has witnessed and learned along the way.
“It is a journey that brought her to the ultimate point of view that she discovered in the Word of God – that until she sees herself as He sees her, she is not seeing at all,” the books overview says, adding that Hasselbeck invites readers to “make the same discovery” for themselves.
Christie and Hasselbeck will become more two in a long line of high-profile authors who have visited the lake Sumter Landing Barnes & Noble in the past year. The others include:
- In November – a little over a year after he was gunned down by a sniper – U.S. Rep Steve Scalise signed copies of “Back in the Game: One Gunman, Countless Heroes, and the Fight for My Life.
- Popular Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson signed copies of his book, “Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution,” at the store on Oct. 6.
- The night before, “Fox and Friends” co-host Steve Doocy and his wife, Kathy, signed copies of their new cookbook, “The Happy Cookbook: A Celebration of the Food That Makes America Smile.” And Steve Doocy appeared in live segments during Friday’s edition of “Fox & Friends” from Lake Sumter Landing outside RJ Gator’s.
- In August, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer signed copies of his new book, “The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President.” And later that same month, Greg Gutfeld, co-host of “The Five” signed copies of “The Gutfeld Monologues: Classic Rants From The Five.”
- And in May, Bret Baier, host of “Special Report with Bret Baier” and chief political anchor for Fox signed copies of his new book titled: “Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire.” His aunt, Kathy Scarito, lives in the Village of Sunset Pointe.