BOLLING: “Why are you running, governor? Why are you running? You know, Donald Trump is — he’s got like 53, 56 percent, if you believe the polls, any given poll, you’re down in the single digits. I mean, what motivates Chris Christie to run for president? Is it to take out Donald Trump or Chris Christie’s sort of fulfilling some sort of, I don’t know, emotional void that you’re looking for? Why are you running?”

CHRISTIE: “Eric, are you a psychiatrist today? You know, if you’re psychiatrist, spend more time on the former president than you will on me. Let me remind you that at this time in 2015, Donald Trump was at 6 percent and Jeb Bush was at 24 percent. And so if you — and I also remember the polls because I was deeply involved in the president’s 2016 campaign that all told us that Hillary Clinton was going to win that race, going all the way up into including the exit polls that night. I’m running because I believe that the country needs a change, that Joe Biden is an awful president of the United States, should have never been there, and it’s only because Donald Trump’s failings that he is there. And what we need to do is to move this country in a new direction. Stop looking backwards.”

[Far be it from me to defend Christie, but Bolling had that coming. “Emotional void”? Christie has made the “take out Donald Trump” motive pretty clear, and of course personal ambition. If Bolling wants to talk about “emotional voids” as political motivation, he’d better expect to get slapped down like this. — Ed]