Trump Screamed at Christie Christie: Epstein "All Your Fault"

The former governor SPILLS THE TEA seven years too late

At the February 21-22, 2026 Principles First Summit in National Harbor, Maryland, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was seated onstage with the organization’s founder, Heath Mayo, for a discussion of President Donald Trump’s disastrous approval numbers, the Republican Party’s future after Trump, and of course, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s 2016 debate meltdown. Mr. Christie also revealed something he should have mentioned two presidential elections ago.

Discussing the Jeffrey Epstein case, Mr. Christie revealed that Mr. Trump had offered him the position of Labor Secretary before giving it to Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. Attorney whose “sweetheart” plea deal with Epstein sentenced the predator “to 18 months, but he could be out every day. He just had to sleep there, like as if it was a hotel. And he went to work every day.” When the Epstein matter inevitably resurfaced during Mr. Acosta’s confirmation hearings and forced his resignation in July 2019, Mr. Trump was furious at Mr. Christie.

“I didn’t understand exactly why he was that angry, but he was really ripped…. Trump came to me and said, it’s all your fault,” Mr. Christie told the audience. “If you had just said yes, I would have never gotten this guy and none of this stuff would have come out.”

Mr. Christie paused for effect. “I still didn’t understand why he was so mad. I didn’t know about his relationship with Epstein at that point.”

Full remarks posted below for context.

Mr. Mayo and the audience laughed, but the substance of the anecdote is not funny. Mr. Trump was enraged that the Epstein case had resurfaced publicly, angry that “this stuff” came out, and looking for someone to blame.

Mr. Christie says he did not understand the significance of Mr. Trump’s fury at the time—but had he really never heard that old aphorism, “a hit dog hollers?” That was 2019. Mr. Christie endorsed Mr. Trump for reelection in 2020 and did not share this anecdote during his own presidential campaign in 2023 and 2024, when he positioned himself as the Republican field’s most vocal Trump critic. He did not bring it up when the Epstein files became a national flashpoint. He told it, for the first time, as entertaining insider gossip.

Mr. Christie also revealed at the conference that he did not vote for president in 2024. The audience booed. “For you, it was binary,” he told them. “For me, it wasn’t.” So even thinking Mr. Trump was weirdly protective of Epstein was not enough to get Mr. Christie in a voting booth. Mr. Christie knows the kind of men who occupy the highest offices in the country, even criticizes them, yet truly damns them too late to change outcomes.

Full Chris Christie Epstein remarks

“Let’s differentiate between answers and prosecutions. So I’ll do answers first, then I’ll do prosecutions.

On answers: it was a bunch of rich, predominantly white guys who are masters of the universe, have made more money—think about what all of these men who have been exposed so far have in common. They’re professionally successful. They’re extraordinarily wealthy. And most of them are incredibly geeky, right? Like, these guys could not close the deal ever in their lives. Could not close the deal. So now they become really rich and they’re thinking, I’m really rich now, I gotta find out how to close the deal. And they look at Jeffrey Epstein and they go, he knows how to close the deal. I’m going to hang with him. What more do you need to know? The character of these men is awful.

And so, on what we need to know—may there be more names and all the rest of it? Yes. But you’re gonna hear the same story over and over again. Every time a new name comes out, like, I saw the video of Les Wexner’s deposition where he was talking about, “I didn’t know that Jeffrey Epstein stole a billion dollars from me.” Like, you know what? The scary part is I actually believe him. He had that much money that he just didn’t miss it. And his relationship with Epstein was so important to him that even if he knew, he didn’t care. So you’re going to see more of these kind of guys.

Now, on the prosecution front, though, this goes way back. I was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey when the Epstein case started. I want you to think about that. We’re talking about 2007. I mean, 19 years ago. And I remember when the plea agreement was reached. All of us amongst the U.S. attorney community would talk with each other about cases that were going on in other places. When I saw that Alex Acosta came to a plea agreement with a guy who was accused of pedophilia, where he turned the case over from the feds to the state, and they sentenced him to 18 months, but he could be out every day—he just had to sleep there, like as if it was a hotel. And he went to work every day. And a United States attorney under George W. Bush agreed to that deal. And a Justice Department agreed to that deal.

And so, you know, Trump is just a continuation and expansion of that problem. Epstein got Alan Dershowitz and a whole bunch of other lawyers who did whatever they did with Alex Acosta, who—again, this would have disappeared. It disappeared all through the Obama years. You didn’t hear Eric Holder ever talk about Jeffrey Epstein, did you? Not once. So all through the Obama years, it disappears.

Trump comes in. The only reason it comes up is because Trump makes Alex Acosta the Labor Secretary. Great decision. So he goes into hearings, and the Democrats bring up Epstein and that plea deal. And then Acosta has to resign. And so it bubbles back up again. And now Trump’s—and I was around at the time, so I know how angry he was. I didn’t understand exactly why he was that angry, but he was really ripped. And the reason I know about it is because he offered me Labor Secretary first, and I turned it down because I didn’t want to go in his cabinet. And he then gave it to Acosta. So when Acosta caused all these problems, Trump came to me and said, “It’s all your fault. If you had just said yes, I would have never gotten this guy and none of this stuff would have come out.” I still didn’t understand why he was so mad. I didn’t know about his relationship with Epstein at that point. And really very few people did.

So my concern is that for most of the people who can be prosecuted, should be prosecuted, we’re beyond the statute now. You need to know this stuff goes back 19 years. And every one of those administrations—Bush 43, Obama, Trump 45, Biden, and Trump 47—all own it. Now, Trump has made the Justice Department unrecognizable, and we would know more of the information about these people if people that were not bought and paid for by the president were not running the Justice Department. But that’s what we got.

And I don’t think—I think it’s amazing that Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna and others have gotten done what they’ve gotten done in light of all this. It really is. Because, remember, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel both told us a year ago there were no Epstein files. There was nothing in there. Now there’s three million pages plus, right? So I guess it just showed up. Maybe it was like in an office at the FBI that no one had looked in for a while.

So we got to give credit. Congress deserves almost no credit for anything right now. I mean, seriously, in that same AP poll, Heath, you know what Congress’s job approval is? This is impossible in one respect. Four percent. So I think two things. My God, how could Congress only have four percent approval? Then I think, how do they even have four percent approval? Like, who are those people? I’d love to interview those people. “Okay, so you think Congress is doing a great job?” “Yep.” “Tell me why.” I think those would be some fascinating answers, who those four percent are. It’s Nancy Mace voting for herself.

Could be. Could be Nancy. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t want to be in Congress anymore. She doesn’t even like Congress. Think about how bad Congress has become when Marjorie Taylor Greene goes, “No, this is too much of a shit show for me. I’m out of here.” I mean, this is incredible. She’s like, “No, this has gone too far. This is absurd.” You can’t imagine you could live that long.

But in the context of all that, Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie—without the two of them, we wouldn’t know what we know now about the Epstein files. We wouldn’t. The Trump administration would have never released it.”

Author’s note: Mr. Christie told this anecdote so casually I assumed it was one he had shared on ABC or CNN or wherever he talks these days. While typing up the Principles First Summit 2026 report—which is shaping up to be another novella like the 2025 Report, I realized I could not find another version of the telling to compare it against. This seems criminally unreported.

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