No one from memory alone can pinpoint the exact moment it happened, but it happened. The relationship between then-Governor Chris Christie and then-Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli went off the rails. By the sound of things this week in the leadup to the 2025 Republican Primary for Governor, that relationship stayed off the rails – in spades.

On Monday night, Christie appeared in the home of state Senator Jon Bramnick, 2025 Republican candidate for governor. About 100 people gathered – friends, allies, supporters, all dedicated to helping Bramnick get elected statewide next year.

Long assumed to back friend and ally Bramnick in the gubernatorial contest, Christie spoke for about

45 minutes, showering the senator with praise. The former governor also criticized Ciattarelli, among others, while preferring to leave one longtime detested GOP candidate disdainfully unnamed (radio personality Bill Spadea).

Specifically, Christie drew the crowd’s attention to something Ciattarelli said when he ran for governor in 2017. At that time, the former assemblyman expressed dismay that Christie would back Trump for president. Christie, in fact, was one of Trump’s earliest backers for the presidency in 2016, if not the TV personality’s earliest establishment backer among statewide elected officials. Ciattarelli didn’t like that. Fast forward to now and Ciattarelli, the enduring Republican candidate for governor, is a Trump supporter, while Christie, the former Trump backer, vociferously warns the country about the consequences of putting Trump back in the White House.

For Christie, the difference between now and then – among arguably many others – is that Trump incited a mob to march on the U.S. Capitol to short-circuit the 2020 election results and disrupt his own vice president from certifying an election that Trump lost to Joe Biden. Just this week on a Philadelphia debate stage, Trump refused to acknowledge that he lost the national contest and continues to make threats about the consequences if he loses on Nov. 5th.

At this point, Christie argues, Ciattarelli should know better, and instead doubles down on his support for Trump as a matter of political ambition, just another head of Trump-bedazzled GOP cattle in a cowed herd. It’s shameful, Christie told Bramnick’s backers, or words to that effect.

Of course, there is some more historical context here.

When Ciattarelli served as an assemblyman and Christie was at that time a presidential candidate and out of state a lot, Ciattarelli made a comment along the lines of New Jersey needing a governor here governing. If he wants to be president, Christie should resign the governorship, said the Somerset-based lawmaker, or words to that effect.

That rankled Christie, and by the sound of things on Monday evening, now the former governor doesn’t mind trying to rankle Ciattarelli against the backdrop of the intensifying 2025 Republican Primary for governor.