Christie: Trump doesn’t give nicknames to people he respects

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Tuesday said President Trump does not give nicknames to people he respects because “he’s afraid what’s going to come back.”

Christie spoke at the Manhattan home of hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen on Tuesday to a crowd that included Trump’s former economic adviser Gary Cohn and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, Axios reported.

{mosads}He told the group to keep an eye out on which Democrat candidates get nicknames in 2020.

“If he respects you, you don’t get a nickname, because he’s afraid what’s going to come back,” Christie said of Trump.

The former New Jersey governor said an example of this is Trump’s relationship with Congress’s top Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

“So Cryin’ Chuck Schumer gets a nickname, because [Trump] has no respect for Schumer,” Christie said.

“But Nancy Pelosi’s got no nickname. It’s just Nancy. And if she doesn’t have a nickname by now, she ain’t getting any,” he added.

Trump has been using nicknames and insults to taunt his political opponents since the 2016 Republican presidential primary, tagging former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) as “low energy” and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as “Little Marco.”

The president still uses the moniker “Crooked Hillary” to attack his former Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Trump frequently goes after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), who is running for president in 2020, over her past claims of Native American heritage, calling her “Pocahontas.” 

Christie, a close ally of the president, was an early supporter of Trump after ending his own 2016 campaign. He was fired after Election Day as the chief of Trump’s transition team.

The New Jersey Republican has been promoting his new book “Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics.”

He criticizes several of Trump’s ex-Cabinet secretaries and advisers in the book, calling them “amateurs,” “weaklings” and “unconnected felons.”