MSNBC: 'A Lot of Damage' to Christie 'Regardless' of Being 'Cleared' of Wrongdoing

On her 12 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Friday, host Andrea Mitchell noted that "Chris Christie has been cleared by the federal investigators of any allegations" in the George Washington Bridge closing scandal. However, MSNBC political reporter Kasie Hunt quickly dismissed the development: "But, there's a lot of damage that's been done in the interim. And there's going to be a lot of questions still that Chris Christie's gonna have to answer..." [Listen to the audio [1]]

Hunt imagined what donors to a hypothetical Christie presidential campaign would say: "People who want to be able to make a sound investment who might look at him and say, 'Well, okay, maybe you didn't do anything criminal, but this is indicative of an overall kind of atmosphere in your administration that would be problematic in the White House.'"

She concluded: "...whatever frontrunner status he had before this happened has been dissipated a lot....it's gonna hurt him a lot regardless of the outcome."

BuzzFeed's Washington bureau chief John Stanton acknowledged that among voters, the investigation findings could "help [Christie] a lot."

Even so, he agreed with Hunt that the controversy hyped by the media would be "a big problem for him" with donors:

...he has this problem of the sort of Jersey, you know, machine sort of corruption image that surrounds him now. And I think a lot of people look at that and they say, "That's going to turn off voters. It's going to be difficult to get you into the White House and difficult to deal with Democrats." So think he's going to have some trouble right there.

MSNBC "gleefully" promoted [2] the bridgegate scandal when it thought it could destroy Christie's political ambitions. Now that it looks like that might not happen, the left-wing network has begun patting itself on the back for already doing "a lot of damage" to the potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate.

Here is a transcript of the September 19 exchange:

12:46 PM ET

ANDREA MITCHELL: Joining me now – rejoining me now is Kasie Hunt of MSNBC and John Stanton, Washington bureau chief for BuzzFeed.com. Well, with all of that on the agenda, there are also some domestic political issues as well.

One thing is WNBC reporting exclusively first that Chris Christie has been cleared by the federal investigators of any allegations of having prior knowledge of political intent on the closing – the lane closures on the GW Bridge.

KASIE HUNT: Sure, Jonathan Dienst sort of finding out that they at this point don't know anything. I mean, I think the broader question for Christie – while, you know, ultimately that's the question, whether or not he knew about this, is there a smoking gun? Now we're reporting that there isn't.

But, there's a lot of damage that's been done in the interim. And there's going to be a lot of questions still that Chris Christie's gonna have to answer, particularly with donors. People who want to be able to make a sound investment who might look at him and say, "Well, okay, maybe you didn't do anything criminal, but this is indicative of an overall kind of atmosphere in your administration that would be problematic in the White House."

And I think that, you know, whatever frontrunner status he had before this happened has been dissipated a lot. And that's – you know, it's gonna hurt him a lot regardless of the outcome.

MITCHELL: Well, speaking – speak to that for a second, John Stanton. Because what is frontrunner status right now on the Republican side?

JOHN STANTON: Right.

MITCHELL: You've got Rand Paul, who would have more trouble with establishment Republicans and national security Republicans, but has more of a ground base than almost anyone else. You've got Jeb [Bush] most likely not wanting to run. Rick Perry wanting to run but he has his own legal problems. I mean, the party has some issues. They've got a lot of Midwestern governors who have yet to be tested.

STANTON: They do. And I think, you know, they're hoping to try to avoid this with some of the changes they're making to the primary system. And trying to move things up and limit the number of debates.

But, you know, I think the one thing is, is that in this political climate right now, people's attention spans are pretty short, and I think most of the public, even the primary voting public, has probably not been that tuned into this. So in terms of, like, the voters and sort of polling, I think Chris Christie – this helps him a lot.

I think to Kasie's point, though, about donors, that is a big problem for him. He lost a lot of donors, the early guys, they started getting bled off to Marco Rubio, to Rand Paul, to other people during this.

HUNT: Even to Rick Perry.

STANTON: Even Rick Perry, right – during this whole scandal. And if he can – it's going to be difficult for him to pull those people back into the fold. And it does – he has this problem of the sort of Jersey, you know, machine sort of corruption image that surrounds him now. And I think a lot of people look at that and they say, "That's going to turn off voters. It's going to be difficult to get you into the White House and difficult to deal with Democrats." So think he's going to have some trouble right there.

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