CHRISTIEMENTUM -- IT WOULD BE LAUGHABLE IF IT WEREN'T DANGEROUS

Axio's Mike Allen informs us that Chris Christie is Having A Moment.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, lacing up for a possible presidential run in 2024, told "Axios on HBO" he won't back down from a fight with former President Donald Trump, taunting his longtime friend for losing the last election.

... This is the first hand-to-hand combat of the 2024 Republican presidential race.

Christie got great press for remarks he made last weekend at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, where he argued Republicans need to focus on future fights rather than rehashing the 2020 election.

That got under Trump's skin. He issued a harsh statement Monday saying Christie "was just absolutely massacred by his statements that Republicans have to move on from the past, meaning the 2020 Election Fraud."

"Everybody remembers," Trump added, "that Chris left New Jersey with a less than 9% approval rating — a record low, and they didn’t want to hear this from him!"

Christie had a zinger ready when I sat down with him Tuesday.

"I'm not gonna get into a back-and-forth with Donald Trump," the former governor told me. "But what I will say is this: When I ran for reelection in 2013, I got 60% of the vote. When he ran for reelection, he lost to Joe Biden."

Yup, Christie got 60%, and then Bridgegate happened, and eventually he left office with a 15% approval rating (I can't find a poll showing him at 9%). And then Christie became a Trump licksplittle and doormat. Now he wants to position himself as a Trump critic and wants to run for president as a Republican -- which is insane. Maybe the GOP electorate will decide it's time for a new candidate in 2024, but the party won't pick an anti-Trump candidate. In an October survey by Echelon of potential GOP primary voters, Christie got a whopping 1% in a a field that didn't include Trump. I assume he'd do even worse if Trump were in the race.

But the mainstream media just wants to believe.

And, this line of attack is back in Trump’s face, which no other Republicans is doing.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 11, 2021

Trump issued the statement attacking Christie to fire a warning shot. Christie shot right back. Combine this and Youngkin strat @jeffroe pointing out Youngkin won on his own and there is some movement away from folks thinking they need to stick by Trump

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 11, 2021

Allen and Haberman both want to believe that the Trump GOP is dying and the new GOP will be civilized and free of the Trump stench. They're going to be proved spectacularly wrong in 2024, when Trump wins the nomination, or the Trumpiest possible substitute wins it if he doesn't run. But in the meantime, they're lulling the mainstream audience with the myth of a decent GOP. This encourages swing voters to believe that the party is trustworthy. It's a gift to the GOP, based on reporters' fantasies.