Chris Christie says Trump made him eat meatloaf at Valentine's Day lunch

Impact

President Donald Trump is every awful ex-boyfriend who ordered for you at restaurants.

Case in point: A recent anecdote shared by Chris Christine. The New Jersey governor and onetime member of the Trump team described a certain incident involving meatloaf on the “Boomer and Carton” sports radio show on Thursday, the Daily Intelligencer reported. 

Matthew Mead/AP

Trump ordered Christie to have meatloaf when he and his wife came to the White House for lunch on Valentine's Day.  

"This is what it’s like to be with Trump," Christie said. "He says, 'There’s the menu, you guys order whatever you want.' And then he says, 'Chris, you and I are going to have the meatloaf.'"

Radio co-host Craig Carton said letting another man order for you is emasculating, alluding to the fact that men frequently ordered on behalf of women when women first began dining out

But men ordering for women should be a thing of the past, Helena Echlin, Chowhound's etiquette expert, wrote in 2010. "Chivalry goes too far when it implies you’re a feeble flower, incapable of ordering your own food," she said. 

Women — and anyone, including Christie — are perfectly capable of deciding whether or not they want meatloaf. Someone else ordering for someone without consent isn't emasculating, it's just rude. (Meatloaf is absolutely not a euphemism in this case.) 

Trump may have learned to silence his dining mate's choices from his father, Fred Trump. The older Trump corrected the president's ex-wife, Ivana Trump, when she tried to order fish while at dinner in the 1970s, when she and Donald were dating, as noted in an interview reported by the New York Times.  

Fred would order steak. Then Donald would order steak. … Everybody order steak. I told the waiter, "I would like to have fish." O.K., so I could have the fish. And Fred would say to the waiter: "No, Ivana is not going to have a fish. She is going to have a steak." I said, "No, I’m going to have my fish." And Donald would come home and say, "Ivana, why would you have a fish instead of a steak?" I say, "Because I’m not going to be told by somebody to have something which I don’t want."

Seems as though the Trumps have always thought they've known what's best for women. (And Christie, it appears.) 

Win McNamee/Getty Images

Christie disputed the "emasculating" comment and said he trusts the president's opinion on White House food. “The guy eats there all the time, and the meatloaf was good,” he said. Trump did not order the meatloaf on behalf of Christie's wife, Christie said. 

Want to hear Christie plead his case for himself? The audio from the interview is in the clip below: 

How much meatloaf will it take Christie to win back a place on Trump's team? Perhaps those who agree to eat whatever the commander in chief dishes out have a fighting chance of joining his cabinet of billionaires