Politico Playbook notes a particularly interesting gem included by Leibovich, a staff writer for The Atlantic, about a conversation that took place between Donald Trump and Chris Christie when both contracted Covid-19 in the fall of 2020. “[Christie] he had, finally, come to an end with Trump after years of disappointments, humiliations and thwarted job aspirations. The final humiliation came in late September, after Christie attended a White House publicity reception for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. In addition to the president and first lady, several high-ranking officials in attendance contracted the virus. This included Christie, whose multiple co-morbidities (obesity, asthma) put him at high risk and landed him in the ICU. “Trump was at Walter Reed Hospital at the same time and called Christie in New Jersey to check in on his friend. After some small talk, Trump moved on to the real purpose of his call. “Are you going to say you got it from me?” Trump asked Christie. It was important not to say that, the president reminded him. Contagiousness, pathogens, ICU — not pretty associations for the brand. “It was one of the few laughs I had in the hospital,” Christie later told me of Trump’s friendly reminder. “I took the phone out and just shook my head. Like, this guy will never change.” In December 2021, the former New Jersey governor blasted the former president and his staff in an interview, claiming it was “indisputable” that the former president gave him a severe case of Covid in 2020 while helping Trump prepare for the presidential campaign. discussions. “We knew that everyone in the room, except the president, was being tested every day. We didn’t know what the president’s testing program was,” Mr Christie told PBS’s Firing Line, adding: “Trump should have told all of us.” Mr Christie, who has had an alternately critical and friendly relationship with Mr Trump, also claimed that the president’s chief of staff Mark Meadows hid Mr Trump’s positive diagnosis for days, putting many people at risk by revealing only who knew what and when in a recent political memoir. In Meadows’ own book, The Chief’s Chief, he claims the president tested positive for Covid on September 26, six days before he announced it to the public and a week before Mr Christie tested positive himself. “He had an obligation to tell us … I would have worn a mask if I had known,” Mr. Christie said in the interview. “So if Mark Meadows knew that someone I was sitting across from for four days had tested positive, he as the White House chief of staff, putting aside the president for a second — obviously, the president is a friend of mine — would had to I looked and was told that… But I think what’s less obvious is that Mark Meadows saved it for his book. Save it for a book.” He claims the former White House chief of staff didn’t even tell him about the positive timing of the test when he was in the hospital. Mr Christie had only good things to say about then first lady Melania Trump, who said she would call him every morning while he was in the hospital to check on him and then call his wife to see if she needed anything .
