Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wasted no time going after Donald Trump while launching his presidential campaign on Tuesday, calling the former president and current Republican primary front-runner a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog" and arguing that he's the only one who can stop him.
Christie began his run with a town hall in New Hampshire. The former governor and federal prosecutor ran for president and lost to Trump in 2016 and went on to become a close off-and-on adviser before breaking with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election.
Now that Trump is trying again for the White House, Christie is out to do everything in his power to deny him. After criticizing other Republican primary rivals for being afraid to directly challenge Trump, Christie made clear that he had no such concerns.
“The person I am talking about, who is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault, who always finds someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong — but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right — is Donald Trump," he told a small, mostly friendly crowd at Saint Anselm College.
“A lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog is not a leader,” Christie said, saying Trump “made us smaller by dividing us even further and pitting us one against the other.”
But he also said President Joe Biden “is doing the same thing, just on the other side.” He noted that he'd known Biden for decades and said the president is “out of his depth” because “he’s not the guy he used to be,” referencing the 80-year-old Biden's advanced age.
For his paret, Trump was quick to slap back at the former New Jersey governor and onetime ally. In a tweet, he asked pointedly: "How many times did Chris Christie use the word SMALL? Does he have a psychological problem with SIZE? Actually, his speech was SMALL, and not very good. It rambled all over the place, and nobody had a clue of what he was talking about.
"Hard to watch, boring, but that’s what you get from a failed Governor (New Jersey) who left office with a 7% approval rating and then got run out of New Hampshire. This time, it won’t be any different!"
Newsmax contributed to this report.
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