Christie warns of 'deranged sycophants' staffing second Trump administration

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie warned that a second Trump administration could be staffed with "a bunch of deranged sycophants" during a Monday morning appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. 

The former governor of New Jersey made the comments in response to Hewitt asking whether “we ought to have more clarity on who’s coming in with the team,” referring to a potential second Trump administration.

“Is this going to be the Kash Patels of the world?” Christie said. “The Jeffrey Clarks of the world? The Michael Flynns of the world are going to be the people who are going to populate the next Trump administration: a bunch of deranged sycophants who will just do whatever the masters tell them to do regardless of the law and the Constitution.”

All three potential staffers — Patel, Clark and Flynn — were at least briefly part of Trump’s administration during his first term.

Clark spread Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. He served as a senior Department of Justice appointee in the Trump administration. 

Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, resigned after less than two months in the role, amid controversy over his correspondence with Russia's ambassador in Washington. 

Patel, a former national security official under Trump, pledged during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast last week to show during a second administration that Trump is "dead serious" about going after members of the media who he falsely claims were involved in efforts to "rig" the 2020 election in President Biden's favor.

“We will go out and find the conspirators — not just in government, but in the media,” Patel told Bannon, who himself served as Trump's chief strategist in the White House.

“We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out,” Patel added.

Trump has fueled fears of his return to the White House with recent claims that he will be a "dictator for one day" upon taking the top office.

Christie, who has focused much of his 2024 campaign on attacking Trump, his onetime ally, predicted the former president would struggle to "find anybody good to work for him.” And he said candidates should be asked who will staff their administration.

"But I absolutely think it’s important, because look, the guy who can’t answer that question is Donald Trump, because 40 of his 44 Cabinet-level people have said not only that they wouldn’t work for him again, they wouldn’t vote for him," he said. "And so who’s he going to bring in?"