Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has taken a jab at his former friend and ally, Donald Trump, by bringing attention to Trump’s longtime obsession with crowd size. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Christie pointed to Trump’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) where the back of the room was “almost completely empty.”
Christie’s remarks come as Trump’s obsession with crowd size has been widely documented and mocked. This includes Trump’s false claims about the size of his inauguration crowd, as well as his tendency to inflate the size of his rallies and to claim that they are sold out even when empty seats are clearly visible.
The former New Jersey governor suggested that Trump’s empty-seat issue extends to other events he has been a part of and speculated that Trump isn’t holding many rallies because he knows the crowds aren’t what they used to be. Christie further added that Trump uses crowd size “as an example of his own power and his own authority, and I don’t think he has it anymore.”
Christie was once a close ally of Trump, endorsing the then-candidate in 2016. He has since become more vocal in his criticism of the former president, even predicting that Trump would lose to Joe Biden if he was the 2024 nominee.
