Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie had harsh words for former President Trump on Tuesday, calling him out for reportedly pointing donations toward a fund Trump’s used for paying legal fees.
“[Trump is] the cheapest S.O.B. I’ve ever met in my life,” the former New Jersey governor said of the former president in a Politico interview.
“What Donald Trump is good at is spending other people’s money,” he added.
Trump’s Save America PAC spent at least $3 million of its funds paying Trump’s lawyers and is paying for the lawyers for some witnesses in the classified documents case, multiple news outlets reported last year. The hired legal firm reportedly donated more than $120,000 to the PAC, according to The Washington Post.
Christie in the Politico interview called the reported diversion of funds to Save America instead of a traditional campaign account deceptive, but in character for the former president.
“This is a billionaire who refused to pay his lawyers with his own personal money, and instead, men and women out there who believe in him and wanted [him] to be elected president are donating money to try to forward his candidacy … and he’s diverting that money to pay his own legal fees,” Christie said.
“He should take a pledge today to instruct his campaign to no longer spend any public money on his legal fees,” Christie added. “He is the richest candidate in this race, yet he is using public money to pay his legal fees. He should be ashamed of himself.”
The former New Jersey governor is ramping up his attacks on Trump, a one-time ally during the 2020 campaign. Christie is one of the staunchest critics of Trump in the packed GOP primary field, hoping to find a path to a nomination as the anti-Trump candidate.
Christie and Trump have traded personal insults in recent days, with Trump calling Christie overweight and Christie lashing back, and Christie criticizing Trump earlier this month for the federal indictment the former president faces of 37 charges related to mishandling classified information.
Christie joined the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination in early June, a late start in a field that is already a dozen strong, and is focusing campaign efforts in the early primary state of New Hampshire.
He has found limited success, with recent polls out of New Hampshire placing him third, behind Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. A New Hampshire Journal poll this month gave Christie 9 percent support, trailing Trump’s 47 percent and DeSantis’s 13.