Chris Christie Turns Donald Trump's Own Attack Against Him

Chris Christie on Sunday hit back against Donald Trump critiquing his weight by turning the remark back against the former president himself.

Christie, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, is one of the more recent additions to the increasingly packed field of candidates for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, and one of the few who also ran in 2016. Once an ally of Trump during the 2016 general election and the early days of his presidency, Christie has now sought to differentiate himself from the 2024 pack by being outspoken in criticizing Trump, frequently highlighting his losing record as a politician and his mounting criminal indictments during campaign appearances.

During a Sunday appearance on Fox News, Christie once again took aim at the former president, this time hitting back at Trump's recent comments mocking the former governor's weight. Coming from Trump, Christie suggested, such insults were hypocritical.

"Oh like he's some Adonis? Please," Christie said. "There are tens of millions of Americans...who like me have struggled with their weight. I continue to struggle, I continue to try to do better...and what's that got to do with my competence for office?"

He continued: "[Trump] is like a child, it's like a bully on the school yard who teases you and makes fun of you, but here's my message to him: I don't care what he says about me, I don't care what he thinks about me. 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."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's press team via email for comment.

In a post to his social media platform Truth Social, Trump earlier in the month shared a video of Christie delivering edited remarks while also being edited to look like he was carrying a full plate of food. When pressed about the post during an appearance on CNN, the former governor had a similar response a few weeks ago.

"It just renewed in my own mind what a child he is," Christie said. "He's a baby. Whenever you want to criticize him, in any way, that's the way he responds."

As noted by a fact-check by the Austin American-Statesman from the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Trump likely qualified as "obese," which found that he was 6 feet 3 inches tall and 243 pounds at the time. Many have, however, questioned the veracity of the physicals Trump received while in office and whether or not his publicly disclosed height and weight are accurate, with some, like MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, suggesting that he is in reality a bit shorter and potentially heavier.