Chris Christie laid into fellow Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on the campaign trail in New Hampshire Tuesday, calling him the "boy in the bubble" who needs to "man up" and answer reporters' questions.
"Unlike some of these other campaigns, I'm not the boy in the bubble," Christie told a large gaggle of reporters who had surrounded him in Bedford, reports
MSNBC. "We know who the boy in the bubble is up here, who never answers your questions, who's constantly scripted and controlled because he can't answer your questions. So when Sen. Rubio gets here, when the boy in the bubble gets here, I hope you guys ask him some questions."
Rubio, in an interview with
CNN "New Day" co-host Alisyn Camerota Wednesday, said that Christie's attacks, like those coming from other candidates, are because of his success in Iowa and elsewhere.
"When people attack you, they don't attack when you're not doing so well," Rubio said, noting that another rival, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, told people he should have been Mitt Romney's running mate in 2012.
"The only thing that changed between then and now is we are both running for president," Rubio said. "Sometimes people don't react well to adversity. I'm not running to go beat up on other Republicans. I'm running to go unify this party and ensure our next president is nothing like the one we have now."
But Christie is striking hard against Rubio, especially following his close third-place finish in Iowa.
"This isn't a student council election, everybody," Christie angrily told the reporters in New Hampshire. "This is an election for president of the United States. Let's get the boy in the bubble out of the bubble, and let's see him play for the next week in New Hampshire. I'm ready to play, and I hope he is."
Christie also complained about the tone of Rubio's speech on Monday night, reports
The Washington Post.
"You would've thought he won," Christie said. "Saying it doesn't make it so. He's got to come up here and he's got to compete and he's got to be under the microscope — and it's going to be a very interesting week for him, I can assure you that."
Christie made his remarks on Tuesday, after Rubio finished with 23 percent of the Iowa caucus, compared to Christie's finish near the bottom with two percent. Christie said he finished in Iowa where he thought he would.
The New Jersey governor also went after other candidates, reports MSNBC, including Donald Trump: "All we've ever heard is that he's first in the polls, he's first in everything. Now he's not."
And Bush, who finished with just three percent in Iowa after his super PAC spent millions: "You know, if there's depression in the land, I'm sure it's over there, because you spend $15 million, compared to $500,000. I can't do the math in my head that quickly … but that's a lot of times more what we spent for 1,800 more votes."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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