Woodward book: Cursing Trump told Christie he was 'jinxing' campaign

A furious Donald Trump lashed out at Chris Christie when Christie began fundraising for Trump‘s presidential transition team, telling the then-New Jersey governor he was “stealing” from the campaign and was never meant to have any real responsibility, journalist Bob Woodward writes in his incendiary new book. The details and other anecdotes involving Christie left the former governor steaming on Tuesday, prompting him to launch into a series of tweets attacking Woodward, saying the legendary scribe never tried to contact him and had incorrectly attributed some quotes to him. It is unclear precisely what Christie disputes about Woodward’s book, “Fear,” which was published on Tuesday. Trump repeatedly cursed at Christie during a meeting with strategist Steve Bannon some time after winning the Republican nomination, saying the transition effort was “jinxing” his campaign and taking away real money from his effort to win the presidency, Woodward wrote. "Where the fuck is the money?" Trump demanded of Christie. "I need money for my campaign. I'm putting money in my campaign and you're fucking stealing from me." Christie, who was later fired from the transition after Trump won the election, defended the effort and said it was required to ensure the next president would be prepared to take over the government. But Trump argued that Mitt Romney had spent too much time on transition work as he ran in 2012, costing him the election. “You're jinxing me,” Woodward quotes Trump telling Christie, who left office in January after two terms. “I don't want a transition. I'm shutting down the transition. I told you from day one it was just an honorary title. You're jinxing me. I'm not going to spend a second on it.” Bannon, now a Christie nemesis, initially cautioned against shutting down the transition, but then agreed to kill the effort, the book says. In the end, Trump ordered a “slimmed-down, skeletal version of the transition,” Woodward writes. Christie was told to stop fundraising. “He can have his transition,” Trump said of Christie, “but I don’t want anything to do with it.” Christie, who is said to have turned down some administration jobs after not being offered a top Cabinet position, is now an analyst for ABC News and lawyer in private practice. He remains a fierce defender of the president, though he routinely criticizes White House staff. The former governor, who backed Trump after dropping his own bid for the GOP nomination, launched into a Twitter tirade against Woodward’s book on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, it appears Bob Woodward has used perpetual leaker Steve Bannon as a co-author for his book. His non-stop, self-centered leaking is why Steve was fired from the White House in the first place,” Christie tweeted. “If Mr. Woodward would have performed rudimentary journalistic fact checking with those he was quoting, he would have had a more accurate book rather than just being a stenographer for Mr. Bannon's self-aggrandizing revisionist history.” Bannon left the White House in August 2017 and was later disavowed by Trump, who said he fired the Breitbart founder and said he had “lost his mind.” Christie had said on ABC News on Sunday that what Woodward had written about him was “profoundly wrong,” but he walked a finer line in his tweets on Tuesday, saying “a number of the statements attributed to me and from others to me in the Woodward book are incorrect.” “I would have been happy to correct them if Mr. Woodward or any member of his staff would have called me, as a person they were quoting, for standard fact checking,” Christie said. Christie’s spokesman and his longtime political adviser both declined further comment. Neither responded to an email asking what, exactly, Christie thought Woodward got wrong. Neither Woodward nor his research assistant, Evelyn Duffy, responded to an email Tuesday seeking comment on Christie’s accusations. source: https://subscriber.politicopro.com/states/new-jersey/story/2018/09/11/cursing-trump-told-christie-he-was-stealing-from-campaign-with-transition-work-woodward-writes-602753 #Headlines by: rhutchins@politico.com (Ryan Hutchins)

Original Post: https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2018/09/11/cursing-trump-told-christie-he-was-stealing-from-campaign-with-transition-work-woodward-writes-602753