Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm your host Sarah Isger joined by Chris Steyerwalt

and we are talking to Governor Chris Christie. That's right. He's the former governor of

New Jersey, the former US attorney, former 2016 candidate and current ABC political commentator

who occasionally, actually, I never get to sit next to him. Tell you the truth. I'm

always a cross the table from him. Never. They don't let Republicans sit next to each

other. Sarah, they don't let Republicans sit next to each other on ABC. Let's tell the truth. Come on.

Let's dive in. Governor, you are one of those rare Republicans who has criticized the party,

praise the party, defended President Trump, criticized President Trump. Going into the midterms,

what are the Republican parties, strengths and weaknesses? Well, listen, I think we've got a

couple of strengths. The first strength is I really like the candidates that we're recruiting

for the midterms. That job's still incomplete. We've got some recruiting for the Senate that we

have to do in places like New Hampshire and Arizona, where hopefully we get the best candidates we

can to take on Maggie Hassan and take on Senator Kelly. But I think our candidate recruitment has

been very strong. I mean, secondly, unfortunately for us, the next biggest advantage we have is

what the Democrats are doing. They're continued shoveling of money out of Washington, DC,

the inflation now and up over 5%. You can begin to see what the impact of these Biden-Harris

policies are going to be. I think that's an advantage for us. Our weakness is that a majority

of the party is still looking backwards, instead of looking forwards. In my experience in politics,

winning campaigns are the campaigns that look forward and that talk about the future.

Losing campaigns are the ones who dwell on the past and grievances and anger of the past. I think

that's our biggest weakness at the moment. Hopefully we'll get onto a more positive, and by

positive, I mean critical agenda about what the Democrats are doing and what our alternative is.

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