It sounds like Donald Trump probably won’t be at the first Republican presidential debate, since he confirmed on Wednesday that he won’t sign the required pledge to support the eventual 2024 GOP nominee. But we don’t have to wonder about what childish insults he might have hurled at fellow candidates on the stage in Milwaukee, as he spent the past few days finding various ways to call Chris Christie fat — then pretended he did no such thing.
While discussing poll numbers that show him well ahead of his opponents during an event at a high-school gym in Windham, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, Trump took a shot at his former adviser.
“Christie, he’s eating right now,” Trump said. “He can’t be bothered.”
Video shows Trump theatrically pointing to someone in the crowd and admonishing them for calling Christie names, though cameras didn’t capture the alleged heckler.
“Sir, please do not call him a fat pig, that’s very disrespect … See, I’m trying to be nice. Don’t call him a fat pig,” Trump said. “You can’t do that.”
Obviously, Trump was mocking Christie’s weight, even if he didn’t initially utter the words “fat pig.” But late on Tuesday night, Trump took to Truth Social to suggest he’d actually been “extremely respectful” of the former New Jersey governor, framing the nasty exchange as his version of John McCain correcting supporters who referred to Barack Obama as a scary “Arab.”
Unsurprisingly, Christie wasn’t happy at all. He shrugged off the fat remark (he’s previously said of Trump’s weight-related gibes, “Oh, like he’s some Adonis”) and used the incident to continue his effort to goad Trump into showing up to the debate.
Then, in an interview with Fox News Digital posted Wednesday night, Christie elaborated on his accusation that Trump was lying about the setup for his fat joke.
“I know from people who were in the room that the guy never said anything. There was no guy in the audience who yelled out the other name that he called me. He made it up like he always does,” Christie said.
This was the part of the “fat pig” incident that disappointed me most. At this point in Trump’s political career, I’m very familiar with his tendency to make offensive and puerile attacks against his enemies. I’ve seen him argue with Marco Rubio over their respective penis size, call Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” at an event honoring Native Americans, and release a whole ad centered on the rumor that Ron DeSantis once ate pudding with his fingers. But rather than owning the fact that he’s a bully with no sense of decency, Trump decided to lie — maybe about the heckler’s existence, and definitely about his broader intention to mock Christie’s weight both onstage and in his Truth Social post.
You call Christie fat, that’s an insult to Christie. You call Christie fat, then act like you’d never do such a thing — that’s an insult to my intelligence and everything we’ve been through in the past eight years.
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