Chris Christie Meet the Press Interview: NJ Governor Tries to Rescue Romney on National TV

Impact

The dog days are far from over for Mitt Romney's imploding presidential candidacy. That's why the weekend before the first presidential debate the GOP is deploying blunt New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to the set of the Sunday morning talk political shows, where he'll slap conservatives out of their malaise and refocus attacks on President Obama ahead of the October 3 presidential debate at the University of Denver in Colorado. 

And the Obama campaign is ready to fight back with White House senior adviser David Plouffe scheduled along Christie in both NBC's Meet the Press and ABC's This Week. Similarly, Obama campaign senior strategist David Axelrod will be trying to keep piling up on Romney from the set of CNN's State of the Union, while Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan will try to do some damage control on the friendlier set of Fox News Sunday.  

Expect Republican surrogates to keep trying to lower expectations ahead of Romney's make or break debate performance, while highlighting the domestic policy talking points that the former governor of Massachusetts will surely be hammering away at Obama when both candidates face of on Wednesday. Conversely, Democratic surrogates and political consultants, such as Howard Dean, on This Week and Howard Fineman on NBC's The Chris Matthews Show, will probably keep pushing on Romney's unfortunate 47% remarks and his supposedly out of touch-ness with the middle class that Obama purports to defend. 

Here's this Sunday's political talk show schedule and guests:   

• Meet the Press on NBC: Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ); White House senior adviser David Plouffe; roundtable with Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, former Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA), BBC's Katty Kay and NBC News' Chuck Todd.

This Week on ABC: Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ); White House senior adviser David Plouffe; roundtable with former RNC Chairman and former Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), former DNC Chair and former Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT), Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, political strategist Matthew Dowd and Politico's Maggie Haberman.

• Face the Nation on CBS: Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ); former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA); roundtable with Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato and The Daily Beast's Bob Shrum; roundtable with Gingrich, Students First founder and CEO Michelle Rhee, author Hedrick Smith (Who Stole the American Dream?), author and The Washington Post's Bob Woodward (The Price of Politics) and Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi.

• Fox News Sunday on Fox News: Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI); roundtable with The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, The Christian Science Monitor's Liz Marlantes, nationally syndicated radio host Laura Ingraham and Fox News' Juan Williams.

• State of the Union on CNN: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Obama campaign senior strategist David Axelrod; Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and DGA Chairman Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-MD); roundtable with CNN's Dana Bash, Republican consultant Alex Castellanos and Democratic strategist Celinda Lake.

• The Chris Matthews Show on NBC and MSNBC: Roundtable with New York Magazine's John Heilemann, Huffington Post's Howard Fineman, NBC News' Kelly O'Donnell and Bloomberg's Trish Regan.