Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said again in a podcast interview that aired Thursday that he is leaving the door open to running on a third-party No Labels ticket in November.
“You know, I think the way I would look at it is: I will do whatever I can to try to make sure that the country doesn’t go through the misery of a second Trump term,” the former 2024 Republican presidential candidate said in response to a direct question about whether he’d run on the No Labels ticket, on The Axe Files with David Axelrod, hosted by the former Barack Obama adviser.
Running on a third-party ticket this fall would mark a third presidential run from Christie, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and then again in 2024, when he dropped out in January before the first nominating contest.
Christie’s decision to suspend his 2o24 bid before New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary followed an intense pressure campaign by New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu and others, who urged him to drop out to give more runway to then–presidential candidate Nikki Haley.
“I wouldn’t preclude anything at this point, David,” the former governor added in Thursday’s podcast interview. “We’ve got the most unsettled political terrain we’ve ever had.”
Joining a No Labels ticket would mark quite the turnaround for Christie, who called the effort a “fool’s errand” last summer, shortly before he launched his 2024 GOP campaign. He’s spent the past few months walking back that rhetoric in his public remarks, first opening the door to a potential No Labels run in February, a few weeks after he dropped out of the GOP race.