New York Times: “Mr. Christie’s fall in the Trump circle was weeks in the making. There was already grumbling, particularly from former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, and from Mr. Trump’s children. Mr. Christie, they believed, had gone off-message after an Access Hollywood tape was released in which Mr. Trump made vulgar comments about women; the governor first canceled Sunday show appearances, then emerged on the radio the next week to call Mr. Trump’s comments ‘indefensible.'”

“Spending on the Trump transition effort, which Mr. Christie was leading, was already higher than what the transition team of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, had spent, even though polls showed her winning. And some around Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Christie was using his post to promote his own people, including his former chief of staff and his former law partner, who were running the team day to day, and one of his longtime supporters, Bob Grady, who had been recommended for several positions.”

“He was in. And then he was out. And now, he’s — well, it’s hard to tell exactly where New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stands in the intrigue-filled orbit of those who surround the president-elect of the United States,” the Washington Post reports.

“What is clear is that Christie has become an object lesson of the perils that face those who try to navigate Donald Trump’s world, a place where loyalty is demanded, but not always one where it is returned in kind.”

“Nine days after the public humiliation of being unceremoniously dumped as the head of Trump’s presidential transition, Christie on Sunday showed up among the parade of potential Trump administration job seekers to meet with the president-elect at his New Jersey golf course.”

Politico: “In a phone call last week, the president-elect told Christie that he had become a political liability.”

“Trump and his top aides were most concerned about two issues, according to nearly a dozen people briefed on the process: Christie’s mismanagement of the transition, and the lingering political fallout of the Bridgegate scandal.”

“In their phone call, which was relayed by three sources, Trump expressed his worry about the recent conviction of two of the governor’s former top aides, who had accused him of knowing more about the shutdown of the George Washington Bridge than he let on. Was more damaging information to come, Trump wondered?”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), “delivering a speech that sounded at times like a farewell address, defended his legacy and was coy about whether he might join President-elect Donald Trump’s administration,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Said Christie: “No matter what happens, whether I join the Trump administration in some capacity or I stay here and finish my term… I’ve had a pretty good run.”

However, Christie added that he has “no reason to believe” he would “do anything other than serve out my full term.”