Christie Fires Back After Trump Mocks His Weight

For now, the most salient stat regarding Donald Trump and Chris Christie is that the former president has 59% of the support of GOP voters and the former governor has 3%, reports the Hill, citing a Morning Consult poll. But the rival candidates are nonetheless engaging in some one-on-one mockery that has been generating headlines for its personal nature:

• Trump: "Christie, he's eating right now. He can't be bothered," the former president said Tuesday in New Hampshire, per Politico. Then Trump pointed to a member of the audience. "Sir, please do not call him a fat pig. That's very disrespectful," he said. "I'm trying to be nice. Don't call him a fat pig. You can't do that."
• Doubling down: Trump repeated the insult on Truth Social, joking that he was being "extremely respectful" of his rival, per Fox News. "During a speech in front of a large crowd of Patriots, somebody shouted out that 'Chris Christie is a fat pig.' Rather than acknowledging that, which many speakers would have done, I said, 'No, No, he is not a fat pig,'" he wrote. "I'm sure Chris would have been very happy with my defense of him!"

• Christie: The former governor responded to Trump's jab with a challenge. "If you had the guts you would show up to the debate and say it to my face," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. The reference is to Trump's threat to skip the first GOP debate later this month.
• Christie, II: In an appearance of his own in New Hampshire Tuesday, Christie got some other shots in at Trump. "Our poor New York City billionaire, so picked on," Christie said, ticking off Trump's legal troubles. "Literally the same time I'm walking around Ukraine, he's waltzing into a courtroom in Washington, DC, to tell us he's being indicted for us," Christie he said at another point. "How lucky are we that we have such a selfless, magnanimous leader."

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