Raheem Kassam's Podcast.

Raheem Kassam

Raheem Kassam does the news, politics, and culture from Capitol Hill and beyond.

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AUDIO REVIEW: 'What Would Reagan Do' By Chris Christie.
Feb 18 2024
AUDIO REVIEW: 'What Would Reagan Do' By Chris Christie.
The following is a loose transcript of the audio embedded above.So this week, I read – in addition to everything else in the news – Chris Christie’s book, What Would Reagan Do, and my review is as follows. I think only Chris Christie could possibly achieve something like this. I think only Chris Christie could make Ronald Reagan look like a weak, feminine, moderate, pale-pastel-wearing pansy while not adding anything to the lore, the underlying epistemological foundation of Reagan’s legacy—just zero. He may as well have been reading from Wikipedia. Maybe he was. And then he just regurgitated that in his own words. I mean, perhaps he was. Because it was that stilted, it has very little flow. It was jarring. It was all sorts of things, you know, “Ronald Reagan was an actor… Ronald Reagan was the president during the Challenger disaster…” A little cut and paste. Tidbits, anecdotes. They’ve appeared elsewhere. Only Chris Christie could’ve made Reagan both a dislikable figure, especially in the book’s epilogue where he goes, “Oh, well, of course, you know, Reagan got amnesty done, and that’s what Trump should have been doing.” I’m pretty sure that’s one of the things that people disliked about Ronald Reagan. His positive legacy is not amnesty. I mean, how disrespectful of fatboy Christie in the first instance. Not just only Chris Christie from a technical prowess perspective of making anything he seems to endorse look like utter shite. But only Chris Christie, in the sense that I don’t think anybody else would have had the kind of top-tier grifter mentality even to attempt those philosophical gymnastics. It’s the only form of gymnastics I suspect Chris Christie will ever do. That is my review of Chris Christie’s book that came out last week. It is a 1 out of 10. It would have been a zero out of 10, but it allowed me to be funny on a pseudo-podcast with you for four minutes. So. It gets 1/10 for what it created in its wake rather than what it was for itself. Don’t buy it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit raheemkassam.substack.com