In new book, Christie says he regrets going to beach during shutdown

Jan 5, 2019; Arlington, TX, USA; American politician Chris Christie on the sidelines before the game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Dallas Cowboys in a NFC Wild Card playoff football game at AT&T Stadium.
Photo credit Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A new book by Chris Christie hits stores Tuesday. In it, the brash and outspoken former New Jersey governor says there would be less turmoil at the White House if his transition plan was kept in place. 
In his book, "Let Me Finish," Christie describes how he was fired as head of president-elect Donald Trump's transition team days after the 2016 election.  He points to Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner — vengeful after Christie, as U.S. attorney, prosecuted Kushner's father a decade earlier — as the driving force behind his sacking.  

Christie says not only did Steve Bannon, at Kushner's urging, fire him, they trashed the transition team's recommendations for Trump's cabinet and senior staff.

"The truly stupid thing they did was get rid of the work, too. That ill-served the president right 'til today. Because they still don't have people in key positions two years into the administration. They picked a number of people for key positions that were completely ill-suited for the job," Christie said.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, for one, Christie told KYW Newsradio.  

Christie said he didn't think Flynn was a truth-teller, and that he sucked up to candidate Trump to get an administration job. Christie writes that Trump thought firing Flynn would end the investigation into whether Russia tried to influence the election. 

"Mike Flynn had been fired the day before. And he said to me, 'Oh, this Russia thing is over now that I fired Flynn.' And I laughed. I said, 'Mr. President, this Russia thing — we're going to be talking about it, unfortunately, on Valentine's Day in 2018. And Jared Kushner was in the room as well and he told me I was crazy. Well, we're now creeping up on Valentine's Day 2019. And we're still talking about it," the former governor said.

Christie says he told Trump there was no way to make the Russia investigation shorter, but he told the president a sure way to make it longer is to keep tweeting and talking about it.

He also wrote in his new book that he regrets going to Island Beach State Park during a state government shutdown two summers ago, in which the photo of him in a beach chair spawned countless memes.

"I'll tell you, I wish I had not got on the beach that day. I write the story in the book about why I did go on the beach for an hour that day and just had the bad luck of having my one hour on the beach during the government shutdown be the time that the Star-Ledger decided to fly a plane over the beach," Christie said.

Christie says in his last summer as governor, he promised his children they could invite friends to the beach house.

He says he was heading to Trenton trying to settle the shutdown when "my wife asked me to come and spend an hour on the beach and I did. Do I regret going on the beach? Of course I do. Because I would have preferred not to have all of that attention to it. But on the other hand, I don't regret for a minute allowing my children and my wife to have that weekend in the only place they're allowed to go on the beach in New Jersey." 

Christie adds Beachgate was overblown because it happened over a fourth of July weekend when there was little other news. He is currently a commentator for ABC.  

When asked if he would work for his longtime friend Donald Trump now, Christie says it depends on the job, and he'll never say never.