Donald Trump and Chris Christie Trade Barbs Across Social Media: ‘That Loss to Joe Still Stings’

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Former President Donald Trump and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie traded barbs across the online battlefield Sunday, sparring over the looming contest for the 2024 Republican nomination.

The two former GOP elected officials were once allies, with Christie serving a core role with Trump’s debate prep and as a member of the 2016 presidential transition team, but their relationship has since soured. The ex-president apparently being the one to infect Christie with a Covid-19 case that sent him to the ICU for a week — and then reportedly worried mostly about if Christie would blame him for the infection — did not help.

Since then, Christie has taken swipes at Trump-backed candidates who flopped in the midterms (while lauding Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for getting re-elected by avoiding Trump’s “vendetta tour” of baseless complaints of fraud in the 2020 election), bragged about his own re-election while dunking on Trump for losing to President Joe Biden,

Christie did vote for Trump in 2016 and 2020, but he’s scoffed at the idea that Trump throwing his hat in the ring for 2024 would clear the field for him and blasted him for having dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, and the former New Jersey governor is considering his own White House bid. Trump has fired back at Christie several times, including making a crass fat joke in a September Truth Social post.

Trump took to his own social media platform again Sunday to lob a few bombs Christie’s way, clearly bristling over the New Jerseyan potentially getting into the 2024 race. Trump attacked his former pal as “Sloppy Chris Christie” and the “failed former Governor” who “spent almost his entire last year in office campaigning in New Hampshire for the Republican Nomination for President.”

Christie’s presidential campaign was “a complete disaster,” Trump continued, “[m]uch like his term in office, where he left with an Approval Rating of just 9%.”

“He endorsed me the following day, later recommended Chris Wray for the FBI (how did that work out?), went down in flames, and then was SALVAGED by ABC FAKE NEWS,” wrote Trump, before adding in one final snarl: “I never wanted him!”

(For the record, Christie’s actual approval rating was 14% when he left office, not 9%.)

A few hours after Trump’s post, Christie slapped back on Twitter.

“I’m the target of Donald Trump’s new tantrum,” wrote Christie. “None of his lies about me today bothered him when he asked me to prep him for every general election debate or offered me 3 different cabinet posts. He’s the only man to lose to Biden outside Delaware. That loss to Joe still stings.”

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