Chris Christie is tired of reporters asking him to react to the latest Donald Trump soundbite, accusing them of trying to sensationalize the campaign before the voting starts in February.
“They think the fight between me and Donald Trump would be King Kong vs. Godzilla – and quite frankly I don’t know which one I am – the ape or the fire breathing lizard,” Christie quipped when he asked to react Donald Trump question in New Hampshire.
Christie accused the reporters and pundits of being bored before the caucuses.
“I know you all want to be amused, I know it’s a week from Iowa and two weeks from New Hampshire and you’re bored,” he told reporters, joking that the campaign embed reporters looked like they needed caffeine.
But during his media interviews this week, Christie often has to spend time answering questions about Donald Trump’s latest sensational soundbite.
“I wonder if you think that you waited too long to go toe to toe with Donald Trump,” Republican strategist Nicole Wallace asked Christie, about competing with the billionaire for “anger voters.”
“I know the media has a Donald Trump obsession, and all of you talk about him, you know, every day over and over and over again, that’s fine. That’s what helps to drive where he is in the polls,” Christie said during an episode of MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday.
On Monday night, Christie was pressed on Trump by radio host Hugh Hewitt.
“All right, Chris Christie, what do you make of that one?” asked Hewitt, after playing a soundbite from Donald Trump joking that he could shoot people on Fifth Avenue and still be loved by his supporters.
“You know, it just, it’s braggadocio, and it’s, I’m over it,” Christie replied.
Hewitt then played another soundbite from Donald Trump of him removing a man wearing a turban from his rally.
“Governor Christie, your reaction?” Hewitt asked, asserting that the man removed from the rally was a Sikh man with traditional clothes
Christie replied that “those kind of stereotypes just are not helpful.”
“Going into all of this, look, all the talk has pretty much been Trump and Cruz, Cruz and Trump heading into Iowa,” Sean Hannity asked Christie during an interview on his radio show on Monday afternoon. “What are your thoughts on the two of them?”
“I always thought that this kind of détente between them was a fake détente, you know, a fake friendship when they were saying nice things about each other,” Christie replied. “And I think, you know, they best be careful that it’s not a murder-suicide pact because, you know fact is, that they’re beating each other up senselessly and it’s not helping us defeat Hillary Clinton.”
Left on his own, however, Christie has not left Trump entirely out of the conversation.
During a town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., Christie brought up Trump’s comment about shooting someone.
“Listen, I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but it’s pretty amazing to say it, isn’t it?” he asked voters. “I understand people want to go vent anger, I’m angry, too. I want to burn Washington down. Folks in New Hampshire need to understand that, you know, you need to have your vote with all due respect be more than just an expression of anger. It can be both. It can be an expression of anger and a commitment to someone who can actually do something about the things that are making you angry.”
He warned voters from picking the wrong candidate just because they shared their anger.
“You think you’re angry now?” he asked. “Then you wait until four years of Hillary Clinton, man. We nominate the wrong person we can wind up having four more years like the eight years we just had – except worse.”
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