In a playground worthy rebuttal from the nation’s leading conservative presidential candidate, Donald Trump this week said he’s not deranged, Chris Christie is.
Trump took to Truth Social Friday — days after the Lincoln Project asked him in a campaign ad, “are you sure you don’t have dementia?” — to share his views on the fitness of his opponent from the state of New Jersey.
“Sloppy Chris Christie is not fit to run for President,” said Trump, currently accused of criminally conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and keeping White House documents in a Florida social club bathroom.
“He is suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
This assertion also arrives after a Republican debate that saw Christie come for Trump “like a bat out of hell,” as one Huffington Post analyst put it.
“Only Christie, whose entire candidacy has been a mission to force the Republican Party to confront its toxic relationship with the former president, treated Trump like the front-runner that he is,” wrote senior political reporter Dan Marens.
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Video of the debate shows Christie's critique focused on recent Trump rhetoric that includes a promise only to be a dictator on “day one.”
“This is an angry, bitter man who now wants to be back as president, because he wants to exact retribution on anyone who has disagreed with them,” Christie said at the debate. “Do I think he was kidding when he said he was a dictator? All you have to do is look at the history.”
Trump Friday asserted that Christie lost the debate and he, despite not attending, had won.
“According to all, he came in LAST in the debate, and I came in FIRST,” Trump wrote. “MAGA!”
This is not strictly true. An analysis from pollsters at 538 shows Christie eked in slightly ahead of Vivek Ramaswamy, who faced a massive backlash for doubling down on multiple conspiracy theories.
The 538 poll does not include Trump in its rankings of winners.
