OPINION:
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says the two leading contenders for the Republican nomination are acting like teenagers.
“I’m not comfortable with it,” he said about the slashing fight between former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“I’m not comfortable with the way both Gov. DeSantis and Donald Trump are moving our debate in this country,” Mr. Christie complained on Sunday on CNN.
This attack comes after Mr. Trump pointed out how many times Mr. Christie, who is a large person, used the word “small” in his presidential announcement speech. It was many, many times.
Then Mr. Trump released a doctored video of Mr. Christie stalking a giant all-you-can-eat buffet holding a plate piled with food as he delivered his announcement speech, complete with his many references to “small.”
“How many times did Chris Christie use the word SMALL?” Mr. Trump wondered. “Does he have a psychological problem with SIZE?”
Mr. Christie now appears to have turned the ship in a different direction. On Sunday, he steered clear of using the word “small” and instead used the word “big.” As in the root of the word “bigly.”
“They’re trying to divide us further,” Mr. Christie said, at a time when there are “big, big issues to be talking about here.”
He said “big” twice for added emphasis. From him, it carried a lot of weight.
Specifically, Mr. Christie was upset about a video that Mr. DeSantis’ campaign sent out attacking Mr. Trump for being too cozy with gays, transgender people, and shirtless male weightlifters slathered in baby oil on the beach.
“This type of video does nothing to address those issues,” he said. By “those issues,” Mr. Christie was referring to the “big, big” ones.
And this is where Mr. Christie may have crossed the line into feeding Mr. Trump’s attack on him for having “a psychological problem with SIZE” and a potential obsession with food.
“It is a teenage, you know, food fight between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump,” Mr. Christie said. “And I don’t think that’s what leaders should be doing.”
Apparently, the DeSantis video really stuck in Mr. Christie’s craw.
To be sure, the video was certainly an odd attack on Mr. Trump.
“To wrap up ‘Pride Month,’ let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it,” said the video released by the DeSantis War Room’s Twitter account.
Yet in the video, Mr. Trump said nothing about “Pride Month.” Instead, the video includes a clip of Mr. Trump saying: “I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.”
Mr. Trump had to slow down to get all the letters out and in the correct order.
Anyway, this was somehow proof to Mr. DeSantis that Mr. Trump celebrates Pride Month.
But here’s the thing: Mr. Trump’s comments vowing to protect gay people came in the weeks after a crazed radical Islamic terrorist entered the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and shot up the place — killing 49 innocent citizens.
This raises the question: What would a President DeSantis have said in the aftermath of a terrorist attack at a gay nightclub in his home state in which 49 innocent people were killed?
“They had it coming”?
“If they hadn’t been gay they would be alive today”?
And, by the way, how do you say that last one without saying the word “gay”?
In the video released by Mr. DeSantis‘ “War Room,” Mr. Trump also says he does not care which bathroom the Olympic athlete formerly known as Bruce Jenner uses in Trump Tower. As if the major “culture wars” Mr. DeSantis really wants to fight are going on in the private unisex bathrooms of an office tower in New York.
More than anything, the video reveals just how thirsty Mr. DeSantis is for attention. But maybe not as thirsty as Mr. Christie is hungry.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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