With Jeff Sessions resigning as President Trump’s Attorney General, reports are now circulating that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in the running to take his place.
According to CBS News, two sources close to the president confirmed that Chris Christie, one of President Trump’s early supporters, is on the short list of potentials to replace Jeff Sessions, who announced his resignation just one day after the midterm elections where Democrats took back the U.S. House.
Aside from Christie, other frontrunners to replace Jeff Sessions include former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, outgoing Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and former Attorney General William Barr, who served under President George H. W. Bush. More from CBS:
Christie is a longtime friend of President Trump’s and endorsed him after dropping out of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Christie then ran the transition process before Mr. Trump took office, a task that was marginalized by other Trump aides and that ultimately bore only marginal influence on personnel and policy in the new administration. Since then, though, he has begun to rebuild his relationship with Mr. Trump and senior White House officials.
Christie served as a U.S. Attorney in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008.
Before dropping out to endorse President Trump in 2016, Chris Christie was arguably the one force that contributed to the downfall of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during one of the primary debates, where Christie successfully painted Rubio as a political robot that repeats talking points. Some conservatives argued Christie unfairly tarnished Rubio to make good with then-candidate Trump.
Though Christie began his governorship of New Jersey with solid approval ratings, which made him a 2016 contender at one point, his tenure ended dismally. According to NJ.com, his approval slipped to the lowest in New Jersey history:
The two-term governor hit another historic low, with 81 percent of New Jersey voters disapproving of the job he’s doing — including a majority, 58 percent, of Republicans, according to a new Quinnipiac University Poll.
Christie has officially polled lower than any governor in modern history.
It’s also the worst approval rating for any governor in any state surveyed by Quinnipiac University in more than 20 years, according to Maurice Carroll, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
Only 15 percent of voters approve of the job Christie is doing. And among members of his own party, only 31 percent of GOP voters approve of the work he’s doing.
The latest figures show more people have soured on the governor since Quinnipiac last surveyed voters on Christie’s job approval rating in January. At that time, 78 percent of New Jersey voters disapproved of the job Christie is doing, while just 17 percent approved.
That tied Christie for the lowest job approval rating of any governor in the history of New Jersey polling.
Of course, the big contributor to the dwindling poll numbers was the infamous “Bridgegate scandal,” where two toll lanes on the George Washington Bridge were inexplicably closed, resulting in a massive traffic pile-up. Later, it was revealed that several of Christie’s allies were involved in the closure, which was possibly enacted as a political retaliation against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing Christie for governor.