Former Trump adviser claims he planted fake viral story about Chris Christie fetching McDonald's for Trump
- A former Trump campaign aide said he made up a viral story about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fetching McDonald's for then-presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
- When that story was first circulated in June 2016, Christie's team vehemently denied it.
A viral story from 2016 about Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie "fetching" President Donald Trump's McDonald's order was entirely made up and planted by a former Trump adviser in The New Yorker, the adviser claimed.
The former aide, Sam Nunberg, told Politico as part of a lengthy story on Christie that he invented the story to embarrass Christie.
"The sad reality is that it was believable," he said, laughing.
In June 2016, The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza wrote that Christie, "another of Trump's opponents early in the campaign, has transformed himself into a sort of manservant, who is constantly with Trump at events."
Lizza added as an aside, in parentheses: "One Republican told me that a friend of his on the Trump campaign used Snapchat to send him a video of Christie fetching Trump's McDonald's order."
At the time, Brian Murray, a Christie spokesman, called the McDonald's anecdote a "completely invented scenario" in an email exchange with Business Insider.
"We categorically deny this ridiculous, completely invented scenario, which the writer attributed to an unnamed source's anonymous friend," Murray said. "The fact the writer relegated this bit of sleaze between parentheses certainly indicates he knew it was trash that had to be separated from the rest of the story."