Mr. Rubio, campaigning in New Hampshire on Friday, joked that the storm is “probably one of the best things to happen to the republic in quite a while” because it temporarily prevented the federal government from issuing new regulations and President Obama from signing executive orders.
The remark left Mr. Christie furious on Sunday as he confronted dangerous coastal flooding across his home state of New Jersey.
“That’s a difference,” Mr. Christie said on CNN, “between a United States senator who has never been responsible for anything and a governor who is responsible for everything that goes on in your state.”
He added: “Fourteen people died across the country. And that shows a real immaturity from Senator Rubio to be joking as families were freezing in the cold, losing power, and some of them losing their loved ones.”
Mr. Rubio’s campaign responded forcefully. It mocked Mr. Christie for planning to remain on the campaign trail even as the snowstorm approached his state.
“Chris Christie wasn’t even going to return to New Jersey until he was shamed into it,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman for Mr. Rubio. “Christie should worry less about Marco’s jokes and more about his own liberal record on gun control, judges and abortion.”
Mr. Christie has repeatedly sought to highlight what he says is Mr. Rubio’s lack of executive experience, mocking him for serving in a legislative body that Mr. Christie argues rarely, if ever, has to make a life-or-death decision.
On Sunday, he found a new reason to make that argument. Mr. Rubio, he said, “never had to make a decision of any consequence at all that he’s had to be held accountable for.”
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