Former New Jersey governor and human torpedo Chris Christie’s mission is to take out former President Donald J. Trump in front of a national television audience but that won’t be easy if the 2024 GOP frontrunner declines to participate as he has suggested, and his blustering adversary is now looking to goad him into showing up.
Christie continues his wall-to-wall media tour as he is given ample exposure despite his single-digit ratings and extreme long-shot status. The kamikaze candidate talked with columnist Maureen Dowd of The New York Times for a new piece, making remarks that are an obvious attempt to bait Trump into walking into an ambush, appealing to his ego by suggesting that he won’t be able to resist showing up on the debate stage.
“I think that he’ll show up at the debates because his ego won’t permit him not to,” the ABC News talking head said.
“He can’t have a big TV show that he’s not on,” he smiled, adding: “He’s on Truth Social going bonkers, and no one’s paying attention? He won’t deal well with that.”
The Trump-hating media has been licking its chops to see Christie unload on Trump in a nationally televised forum since it was first rumored that he’d be jumping into the race, and the former governor himself has boasted about how he’s going to demolish the former president on the debate stage.
Living off his past laurels, Christie recalled his demolition of then-candidate Marco Rubio which knocked the Florida senator off stride in a 2016 debate.“You better have somebody on that stage who can do to him what I did to Marco,” he told a crowd during a trip to New Hampshire prior to his official announcement, suggesting that only he is capable of vanquishing Trump.
While Christie has been getting more face time on Sunday morning television since the late John McCain in his heyday, Trump has so far declined to engage his mouthy Republican foe directly. Instead, he has stuck to sniping at the morbidly obese former prosecutor from his Truth Social platform, most recently last week when he posted an unflattering picture with the caption “Resting after a good 25 minutes of work!”
(Image: Screengrab/Truth Social)
“I’m not going to say it never bothers me,” Christie said of Trump’s fat jabs, reprising his applause line that Trump ‘is no Adonis,” so “coming from him? Who cares? Look in the mirror. I always thought it was very funny that he has this vision of himself. He told me one time the reason he ties his ties so long is that it slenderizes him and I should do the same thing.”
Christie would be credited with a twofer if he could also sink Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, taking down the only two Republican candidates who have a good chance of ending the Biden nightmare before he returns to his regular seat as a political analyst gasbag on ABC. And on Sunday’s edition of “State of the Union,” he attacked the rising conservative star over his team’s campaign spot that mocked Trump over his Pride Month support.
Trump and DeSantis are trying to divide us further.
This is a teenage food fight that is narrowing our country and making us smaller. It’s absolutely wrong. pic.twitter.com/j7cQtoLvxT
— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) July 2, 2023
“The idea that somehow everyone’s going to stand around and wait for him to collapse of his own weight and then say, ‘Oh, I didn’t say anything bad about him,’” he told Dowd. “He’s never fallen off his own weight. The only time Donald Trump’s ever backed off in his life is when he’s been beaten to back off. I saw it happen in Atlantic City. He was bankrupt three times. He had to finally give in and close down.”
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