Insults

Marco Rubio trades insults with Chris Christie

By Anna Palmer

Marco Rubio wasted no time Tuesday before pushing back on New Hampshire rival Chris Christie for calling him the "boy in the bubble."

"Chris has had a tough couple of days," Rubio said in an interview with ABC News at Puritan Backroom restaurant. "He's not doing very well, and he did very poorly in Iowa. And sometimes when people run into adversity they don't react well and they say things they maybe will later regret."

Rubio hit the ground running here after a strong third-place showing in the Iowa caucus. He had an early morning campaign stop at the Airport Diner and went on a full-court media blitz doing 10 interviews, including with all TV networks and CNN and Fox News and New Hampshire radio host Jack Heath.

And throughout, he tried to downplay Ted Cruz's victory in the state.

"Well, look, as we always said, Ted Cruz was the front-runner in Iowa, basically his entire campaign was in Iowa," Rubio said. "For us, we've been involved in multiple states."

"We've been doing that in multiple states and despite that we came just a few thousand votes short of being in first place," he added.

Later in an interview with CBS, Rubio said he thinks he's in a better position than Cruz to become the Republican Party's nominee.

“I think Ted’s been very calculated. He'll say anything to get a vote, so you’ll see him take multiple positions," Rubio said. "I do think he’s been very calculating, and I do believe he's willing to say just about anything to get a vote."

Rubio dismissed the suggestion that he was trying to manage expectations about how well he would do in the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary. His campaign successfully tamped down much of the talk leading up to Iowa that he might beat Cruz in the caucus.

"I don't play expectations games," Rubio said.

And while he almost bested Trump in Iowa, Rubio believes the real estate mogul will continue to be a factor in the race. His campaign had hoped Trump would win the Iowa Caucus and cripple Cruz's bid for the White House.

"He's a big personality, he's very entertaining, he drives media attention. So he'll be here around a little bit longer, I'm sure," Rubio said.