Last week, former President Donald Trump appeared to knock Chris Christie’s weight. Now, the former New Jersey governor is ribbing Trump back.
Christie, who once had a friendly rapport with Trump, mercilessly mocked him for his recent assertion that a president can declassify material “even by thinking about it” before throwing shade at Trump’s management style during a convention Thursday.
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“We have a former president of the United States who [went] on national television last night and said, ‘I declassified the documents thinking about it,’” Christie jabbed while attending a business convention Thursday, the New York Post reported.
“Imagine all I could have accomplished if I only knew that I didn’t actually have to do it. I just had to think about it — this is a credible candidate for 2024,” he reportedly added.
Last Friday, Trump took to Truth Social to post a picture of Christie preparing a meal, in what has been widely perceived as a swipe at his weight.
“Chris Christie at a Roy Rogers at 11PM in the evening trying to console himself,” Trump wrote.
The former president’s apparent picture-shaming of Christie came on the heels of an interview Christie did in which he argued the Justice Department had “no choice” but to raid Mar-a-Lago and chided Trump for the classified documents found at his Palm Beach estate.
Although he ran against Trump in the 2016 election, Christie became one of the first Republicans to endorse Trump, who later bulldozed through a field of 17 primary contenders.
Throughout the general election, Christie crafted a comprehensive transition plan for Trump but later claimed in his book that his plans were largely thrown out after Trump won the presidency. He eyed the role of vice president and attorney general but never got an offer and blamed Jared Kushner, whose father he prosecuted.
Still, Trump and Christie, both known for their brash and unencumbered style of politics, maintained a relatively amicable though at times tenuous relationship during Trump’s presidency. That began to change after the 2020 election when Christie became increasingly critical in public about Trump.
“He doesn’t have the guts to fire somebody face-to-face,” Christie said, according to the New York Post. “He has fired two chiefs of staff on Twitter and a number of other Cabinet members. Because that you’ll do all by yourself sitting alone in your room staring at your phone. And you could call them any name you want.”
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The former governor, who has left the door open to vying for president in 2024, also jokingly gave a backhanded compliment to Pennsylvania Senate hopeful Dr. Mehmet Oz.
“I defend Dr. [Mehmet] Oz because he is a longtime New Jerseyan — problem is, he’s running in Pennsylvania,” Christie quipped.
Oz is currently trailing Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling.