Like the hardscrabble hero of a Bruce Springsteen song, New Jersey governor Chris Christie is down but not out, at least not yet. Despite a collapsed political career in the Garden State, the specter of the Bridgegate scandal still hanging over his head, and the very public repudiation he appeared to receive from Donald Trump’s transition team in the weeks following the election, when he was passed over for a number of possible administration jobs, the erstwhile Republican star is reportedly still angling to be among the second wave of hires to serve under President Trump. Betting that the volatile brew of Beltway neophytes, former lobbyists, Trump loyalists, and billionaire businessmen currently bouncing around the president-elect’s inner circle is likely to combust when they come into contact with the government bureaucracy, Christie is said to be setting himself up for a second act in Washington once Trump’s scandal-ready White House inevitably catches fire.

“I think he’s one who feels that there will be a good amount of turnover and so Trump will be looking for a range of different people and talents as time goes on,” one New Jersey Republican insider told Politico. “It happens in every administration there are a lot of people who turn out to be bad appointments at various levels, they wash out, and then you get a second wave coming in,” Eric Edelman, the former undersecretary of defense for policy under George W. Bush, added. (Look no further than Bill Clinton’s decision to name Leon Panetta his chief of staff a year and a half into his first term as an example—a staffing change Vanity Fair contributor Chris Whipple argued saved the former Arkansas governor from being a one-term wonder.) “There’s this idea that anybody can do these jobs. Actually, the number of people who have the background, the temperament, the subject matter expertise is narrower than you would think, and as you go higher up the pyramid, the numbers drop dramatically,” Edelman continued.

After grinding through three campaign managers in 16 months and running a campaign where infighting among his inner circle was one of the few constants, the expectation for turnover early into Trump’s presidency is even higher than presidents past. “There’s waves in everything,” one senior transition aide told Politico. “There’s waves in campaigns. There was [Corey] Lewandowski. Then, there was Paul Manafort. Then, there was [David] Bossie, [Stephen] Bannon, and Kellyanne [Conway]. That’s how Trump operates. It’s Game of Thrones, The Apprentice, and Survivor all mixed into one.”

Since the billionaire New Yorker’s unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in November, the palpable discord in Trump Tower has only deepened, as the jockeying for power in the White House has evolved to ideological battles between Trump loyalists and the Establishment Republicans the president-elect has surrounded himself with. And Christie is just biding his time. The Garden State governor quickly became one of Trump’s most ardent and effective surrogates on the campaign trail, only to endure an inglorious fall. After months defending the then Republican nominee’s most indefensible gaffes, Christie emerged as a top contender for vice president and was widely thought to be guaranteed a high-profile Cabinet position as a reward for his unwavering loyalty. But as the 2013 George Washington Bridge scandal once again dominated headlines and two of Christie's former allies, Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni, were found guilty on all counts of conspiracy, civil-rights violations, and fraud for their involvement in the lane-closure scheme, the New Jersey governor’s West Wing aspirations went up in smoke.