Chris Christie - Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics

S teve Bannon was never big on small talk.

But on this particular Thursday morning, two days after Donald Trump shocked nearly everyone by getting himself elected president, Trumps self-impressed campaign CEO was even more abrupt than usual.

Sit down a sec, Steve mumbled in that distinctive rasp of his, summoning me from a transition-team meeting and into his spartan glass office on Trump Towers fourteenth floor. Steve Bannon is the only person I have ever met who can look pretentious and like an unmade bed at the very same time. He motioned for me to shut the door and sit down.

Weve decided to make a change, he said, getting right to the point.

Good, I answered. What are we changing?

His response came in a single word.

You.

Me?

The vice president is going to be the new chairman of the transition, Steve went on, and youre out. Going forward, you have no position of any kind in the transition, and we do not want you to be in the building anymore.

I wasnt only being fired. I was being eliminated. Vaporized.

Id been close to the president-elect for the past fourteen years, longer than anyone else in the inner circle who wasnt related by marriage or blood. Id been the first governor in the nation to endorse himthe first major elected official of any sort. Id just spent the past nine months campaigning with and for him. Since May, I had been chairman of his transition team, a huge responsibility he had asked me to take on, designing an entire federal government in his image and likeness.

Was this really how it was all going to end?

I could feel my heart pounding as Steve barreled on, laying out my future as he imagined it. I had to call on all my experience as a US Attorney and governor just to hold my anger in. It was crucial to keep my cool. No way was I letting Steve Bannon see how devastating this development felt to me.

Whose decision is this? I asked him.

It doesnt really matter, Steve deflected.

As far as I was concerned, that wasnt remotely good enough. I want to know whose decision it is, I repeated. Did the president-elect make this decision?

Its really of no consequence, Governor, Steve insisted. The decision is made. There is no changing it. We expect you to comply.

Id been dealing with Steve periodically since August, when he left Breitbart News, at least officially, and moved into Trump Tower as chief executive of the Trump campaign. Wed worked together on debate prep. Hed gotten involved in some transition stuff. Wed talked strategy quite a few times. Gruff, bright, and never lacking faith in his own brilliance, Steve saw himself not as a political operative or a campaign adviser but as a high-level executive. From everything I had witnessed, he had one overriding goal: ingratiating himself with the Trump family. Everything else was secondary. For months, Steve had been telling the candidate he had a 100-percent chance of victorythen saying something far less optimistic behind his back. But now that the votes had all been counted and the impossible had occurred, Steve seemed certain that, come January 20, 2017, hed be moving into the West Wing of the White House as the new presidents chief of staff.

I stared at Steve across his desk. So this was how he wanted to play it? Like I was an errant child who deserved no explanation as I was bounced out the door? Steve knew and I knewand certainly Donald knewthat Id been one of the very few grown-ups on this wild ride of a campaign. The president-elect and I had an excellent relationship. And now I was being banishedno warning and no fingerprintsjust when the time came to execute our carefully crafted, thirty-volume transition plan. Was this where my friendship with the soon-to-be-president was going to crash and burn? I was about to find out.

Okay, thats fine, I told Steve as I stood to leave.

By the way, I added, just so you know. Since you wont tell me anything, Im going to have to assume it was your decision. You are the one conveying it. Now Im going to go downstairs to that scrum of reporters in the lobby and tell them I was just fired by Steve Bannon. That it was Steve Bannons decision and Steve Bannons alone. And thats not all Ill say. You can count on the fact that Ill have a lot to say. Then you can deal with all the incoming and explain everything yourself. Good to see you.

The reporters in the lobby would eat this stuff up. I was certain of that. If there was anything Id learned from two decades in New Jersey politics and as a federal prosecutor, its that reporters like nothing more than a life-or-death feud. Two minutes from now, Steves cell phone was going to explode.

Suddenly, Steve changed his tune. No, no, no, I heard him say, not quite as unequivocally as before. Wait a second. You cant walk out and do that.

Oh yeah, I can, I told him. Im no longer associated with this place. Im not allowed in the building. You made your decision. Now I am making mine.

Governor, Steve pleaded. Sit down, and lets talk about it.

What do we have to talk about? I asked, glancing at the open door. I should leave.

I knew this couldnt be Donalds idea. He and I had been there for each other, time and again. He said to me as far back as Labor Day: Chris, you and I are so smart, and weve known each other for so long, we could do the whole transition together if we just leave the victory party two hours early! I loved the self-confidence and appreciated the compliment, but, No, Id told him, we need to do this right. Now that the election was over and victory was ours, I was even more grateful that Id talked him down from his just-wing-it approach. It made no sense for Donald Trump, who had never held public office, to sever his relationship with one of the few people around him whod actually run an executive branch of government. How did that serve him? Of course it didnt. And now the momentum in Steve Bannons office seemed to be shifting my way.