Here’s a little 2024 media story guaranteed to make Republican eyes roll: I’m told that G.O.P. spoiler candidate Chris Christie will be appearing on Pod Save America this week, taping an interview for Thursday’s podcast with Crooked Media co-founder Jon Lovett. Yes, you read that correctly. The first presidential candidate of the 2024 cycle to appear on the popular progressive podcast won’t be Joe Biden—it will be the Bridgegate-stained former Republican governor of New Jersey who was once one of Barack Obama’s loudest critics.

The booking is obviously a nice get for Crooked, which routinely scores big interviews with friendly Democrats but never big-name Republicans. Why, though, would Christie choose to wade into liberal podcast waters when he’s ostensibly trying to win the Republican nomination? Especially with Lovett—a fearless comedian who isn’t afraid to roast the candidate, a Trump supplicant-turned-critic, in a way that Anderson Cooper or George Stephanopoulos never would. The simple answer is that Christie really has nothing to lose with Republicans, but plenty to gain from Democrats. 

To state the obvious: Christie will not be the Republican nominee. He has always had challenges with the G.O.P. base, sore spots that flared during his failed 2016 presidential campaign. He pushed for a DREAM Act in New Jersey, supported gun control laws, and once identified as pro-choice. And even though he ripped Obama, hardcore Republicans will never forgive him for embracing (literally and physically, in the form of that awkward bro-hug, or whatever it was) the sitting president in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, during the final days of the 2012 election.