--- title: Chris Christie: Hillary Clinton Started 'Bigot' Name-Calling description: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie blamed Hillary Clinton for starting a campaign fight over bigotry during an appearance on ABC's This Week. canonical: https://time.com/4469893/chris-christie-hillary-clinton-bigotry-election/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-28T14:49:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:41.853Z article:section: Politics og:title: Christie Blames Clinton for Trump's 'Bigot' Remark og:description: "Ms. Clinton started the idea of calling Donald Trump those types of names." og:url: https://time.com/4469893/chris-christie-hillary-clinton-bigotry-election/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb0cf2f63f7be2484/6988a3e697cdff79a76ad9ad/chris-christie.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: ASB 0827 Christie Toms River og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Christie Blames Clinton for Trump's 'Bigot' Remark twitter:description: "Ms. Clinton started the idea of calling Donald Trump those types of names." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb0cf2f63f7be2484/6988a3e697cdff79a76ad9ad/chris-christie.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # New Jersey Gov. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Aug 28, 2016 2:49 PM UTC  New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks at the East Dover Firehouse in Toms River, N.J, on Aug. 26, 2016. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks at the East Dover Firehouse in Toms River, N.J, on Aug. 26, 2016. Thomas P. Costello—The Asbury Park Press/AP by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Aug 28, 2016 2:49 PM UTC New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie blamed Hillary Clinton for starting a campaign fight over bigotry during an appearance on [ABC’s _This Week._](http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek) Asked by host Martha Raddatz whether he agrees with Trump that Clinton is a “bigot,” the Trump adviser instead turned on the Democratic nominee. “Ms. Clinton has started the idea of calling Donald Trump those types of names,” he said. “And the fact is that, once you are the person—and Ms. Clinton is the person who injected this type of commentary into this race—once you inject that type of commentary into this race, you can’t then sit back and start complaining about it or have some of your handmaidens in the media complain about it.” Trump [called Clinton a “bigot”](http://time.com/4465543/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bigot-mississippi-rally/) last week during a Jackson, Miss., rally, ahead of an expected speech by Clinton highlighting his campaign’s ties to the “alt-right” movement. The Clinton campaign then [released a provocative ad](https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/768823064033308673) featuring Ku Klux Klan members and other white nationalists supporting Trump, while Clinton [condemned Trump](http://time.com/4466706/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-radical-fringe-hate-transcript/) in a speech in Reno, Nevada, for his statements on a Mexican judge, his retweets of white supremacist accounts and other campaign moves. “He’s taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over one of America’s two major political parties. His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous,” Clinton said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4469893/chris-christie-hillary-clinton-bigotry-election/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4469893/chris-christie-hillary-clinton-bigotry-election/"},"headline":"New Jersey Gov. 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