Chris Christie highlightedTrump 's conflicts of interest during 2020 debate prep, a new book says.- "Your family traded the influence they have in the White House to make tens of millions of dollars," he said.
President Donald Trump blew up at Chris Christie during debate prep last year after the former New Jersey governor and Trump ally brought up Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's apparent self-enrichment from their White House roles.
That's according to the ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl's book "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show," a copy of which Insider obtained in advance of its release on Tuesday.
Preparing for his first debate against Joe Biden, Trump gathered in the Map Room in the White House basement with Christie; his campaign manager, Bill Stepien; his advisor Jason Miller; Rudy Giuliani; his counselor Kellyanne Conway; his advisor Stephen Miller; Hope Hicks; Kayleigh McEnany, the press secretary; and Mark Meadows, the chief of staff.
Christie was tasked with playing Biden for a mock debate session, while Conway served as the moderator. According to the book, Giuliani was transfixed with Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine, urging the president to attack Biden over the issue.
"Rudy was being a disruptive force," one of the attendees told Karl. "No matter what we were talking about, all he wanted to do was talk about Hunter Biden."
As Giuliani struggled to display a video that purportedly showed more evidence of Biden's corruption - his iPad kept freezing - Christie came to see the line of attack as a risky strategy for Trump given his own ethics issue, the book says. In character as Biden, he went on the attack to illustrate the point.
"You have real nerve talking about relatives taking advantage of political power," Christie said, according to Karl. "You've invited your daughter and son-in-law into the White House and they made $36 million last year while they were doing the people's business. Your family traded the influence they have in the White House to make tens of millions of dollars."
"That's absolutely untrue! We've lost money here," Trump responded. "We've lost money here. My children are losing money being here. Jared has sacrificed more than anyone being away from his business. He hasn't made any kind of money."
As Christie pressed the issue, Trump grew incensed.
"I'm not going to sit here and put up with this shit," he said, glaring at Christie, the book says.
Christie stepped back from his character. "If you go too deeply into the Hunter Biden stuff, this is the kind of stuff he will hit you back on. You've got to be ready for that. My job is to get you ready," he said.
"I don't want to hear any more," Trump said. "I know what they're going to say. Enough. Let's move on."
Christie, Stepien, and Meadows agreed to bar Giuliani from future debate prep but were unsuccessful; Giuliani was turned away from a 2:30 p.m. debate session the next day, only to make it to a different one at 6 p.m. by calling Trump directly, the book says.
In the debate, Trump interrupted Biden several times. On ABC, Christie criticized Trump's performance, saying it was "too hot."
"You come in and decide you want to be aggressive, and I think that was the right thing to be aggressive, but that was too hot," he said. "And so I think that what happens is with all that heat, as you said before, you lose the light. That potentially can be fixed. Maybe, maybe not."
-ABC News (@ABC) September 30, 2020
Christie did not respond to Insider's request for comment for this article.