Chris Christie just can’t help himself. The former New Jersey governor and twice-failed presidential hopeful, now moonlighting as a professional Trump-basher on ABC News panels, took his latest swing at HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the weekend.
On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Christie dismissed Kennedy’s Senate testimony, sneering that RFK Jr. was a “foolish man, full of foolish and vapid ideas.”
The irony practically writes itself. Kennedy, at 71, remains fit and vigorous, actively driving policy from inside the Cabinet. Christie, at 63, nearly a decade younger, looks like he couldn’t jog across a debate stage without collapsing. Kennedy is in the room making decisions. Christie is on the outside, lobbing barbs from a studio chair.
Chris Christie weighs in on the public health debate to trash RFK Jr:
“Robert F Kennedy Jr is a foolish man, full of foolish and vapid ideas.” pic.twitter.com/sOkWuaEldw
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) September 7, 2025
And that’s the point. Christie’s attacks aren’t rooted in substance. They’re rooted in jealousy. He once saw himself as a power broker in Trump’s administration — maybe even as Attorney General. But after Bridgegate and his post-2020 gamble to distance himself from Trump, the dream evaporated. Christie went all-in as an anti-MAGA pundit, hoping the media would reward him with influence. Instead, he’s become a useful idiot for the legacy press: wheeled out to provide “Republican” cover for left-wing talking points.
Sunday’s roundtable was no different. Christie, echoing Beltway groupthink, blasted Kennedy and even Republican senators like Bill Cassidy who voted to confirm him, claiming the president had installed a “public health denier” as a giant middle finger to the establishment. If anyone should recognize that middle finger, it’s Christie — he’s been on the receiving end of it from Trump since 2020.
But Christie’s words ring hollow. For over two decades, public health bureaucrats failed Americans, culminating in the disastrous COVID years. That’s the context for Kennedy’s leadership at HHS — a break from orthodoxy that terrifies the swamp but resonates with voters who lived through lockdowns, mandates, and botched messaging.
Reince Priebus, also on the panel, defended Kennedy as the right man for the job, noting that “orthodox” public health leadership has done nothing but erode trust. Christie, meanwhile, looked like a bitter has-been, wagging his finger while others shaped the future.
WATCH: Chris Christie RAGES at RFK Jr pic.twitter.com/wQRAu3A8pW
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 7, 2025
Outside the studio, Christie’s “career” is reduced to Yale guest lectures, ghost-written books nobody reads, and sad gigs at conferences like “Principles First.” Inside the studio, he’s George Stephanopoulos’ attack dog, offering sound bites to a media class still licking its wounds from paying Trump $15 million in defamation settlements.
Christie’s rant against RFK Jr. didn’t weaken Kennedy or the president. It only highlighted Christie’s own exile from relevance. Once he imagined himself shaping national policy. Now he contents himself with nibbling on scraps of attention, hoping someone notices.
