Former New Jersey Gov Chris Christie is ready for any jabs at his appearance which Donald Trump may aim at him on the debate stage.
That was the message he sent this weekend when asked about the issue on Fox News’s MediaBuzz, quipping to host Howard Kurtz that Mr Trump was no “Adonis”. Mr Trump has made a handful of references to the governor’s weight since the launch of the latter’s campaign, including by posting a photoshopped image of Mr Christie onstage with a buffet of food poorly edited into the frame.
“Oh, like he’s some Adonis?” Mr Christie said to Kurtz, who was suppressing a grin.
“Here’s my message to him: I don’t care what he says about me, and I don’t care what he thinks about me, and he should take a look in the mirror every once in a while. Maybe he’d drop the weight thing off of his list of criticisms,” added the former governor.
The quip was yet another sign of the governor’s emerging campaign strategy: A debate-stage showdown with Donald Trump.
Clearly understanding that much of the GOP primary voting base loves a spectacle, and especially any politician who can land a punch, Mr Christie appears to be aiming for a showy moment onstage with the former president that will vault his campaign from the margins of the GOP primary field into the mainstream.
The former New Jersey governor launched his campaign at St Anselm College in New Hampshire, an early primary state, weeks earlier in June. His opening salvo against the former president was withering and targeted (nearly) every legal entanglement, scandal and misstep which Mr Trump has found himself embroiled in for the past several years — while at the same time, the ex-governor derided his Republican rivals for being unwilling to be direct with their criticism.
“It’s like he’s Voldemort,” Mr Christie said at a pre-launch event in April, “You’re not going to beat someone by closing your eyes, clicking your heels together three times and saying there’s no place like home.”
