Political commentator Chris Matthews interviewed former New Jersey Governor and former GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie on his Substack show this week.
Christie, a former Trump insider turned MAGA critic, revealed many stories related to the President and stated that he didn’t vote for Trump — nor for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris — in the 2024 election. Christie said he voted down ballot but for the job of president, he said, “I left that part blank. It was the first time in my life that I haven’t voted for president.”
Wonder who Republican former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie voted for? pic.twitter.com/qRVH0MxEN5
— Chris Matthews (@HardballChris) July 8, 2025
in the interview, Christie criticized Trump and his domestic policy bill — the “big, beautiful bill” — which according to the CBO will add $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
Talking about Trump’s history of financial stewardship, the former Governor said, “Look, this is the guy who had his casinos go bankrupt three times.” (Trump’s casinos — Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza, and Trump Castle, among others — were located in Atlantic City, New Jersey.) Christie added, “You gotta be pretty stupid or pretty crooked to go bankrupt running a casino.”
Christie reminded Matthews that “Donald Trump used to call himself the King of Debt when he was in the private sector. He stuck it to his creditors over and over again, and was gleeful about it. He said it made him smart.”
Trump told Chris Christie to let New Jersey go bankrupt when he was governor. pic.twitter.com/JzvFvOaFGo
— Chris Matthews (@HardballChris) July 8, 2025
Delivering a story about Trump from the time when he was Governor in 2010, Christie said: “We inherited a huge budget problem, we were confronting a lot of difficult choices. Trump called me one day, and said, ‘I got the way to fix this for you.’ And I said, ‘Okay, Donald, what do you got?’ And he goes, he said, ‘Go bankrupt.’ And I said, ‘I’m a state, I can’t go bankrupt.’ He goes, ‘Screw it, do it anyway.’ He said, ‘they’ll take you to court, you’ll ultimately lose in a couple of years, and by that time the problem will probably fix itself.'”
Christie added: “In the end, this is a guy who wants to spend, spend, spend, and the thing he does best is spend other people’s money. And we now have put him in charge of spending ours.”
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