Donald Trump's very Jersey Shore rally: Ex-president boasts he ate a hot dog and mocks Chris Christie at oceanfront event that campaign claims attracted an 80,000-strong MAGA crowd

Former President Donald Trump held a yuge Jersey Shore rally Saturday evening in Wildwood, where he talked about eating hot dogs and mocked the state's former governor, Chris Christie. 

The ex-president's campaign claimed that 80,000 supporters came out for the oceanfront affair.

Trump opened up the rally by saying he planned to compete not only in New Jersey - a traditionally Democratic state - but Minnesota and Virginia as well.

'I don't know it could be all of them,' Trump predicted of the states he would win in the November election. 'This guy is so damn bad, it could be all of them.' 

The presumptive Republican nominee sprinkled his stump speech with Jersey Shore references, as he spoke in front of a large Ferris Wheel and other amusement park rides.

'Let's talk about hot dogs. I just had one actually,' Trump declared. 'I just had a hot dog, it was very good.'

He segued into a story about how Frank Sinatra told him not to eat before a performance but he didn't take that advice because he was a 'politician,' while his other friend, Italian opera singer Pavarotti, gave no such advice.

Then Trump made it back to the meat of the message - that hot dogs, hamburgers, gas and everything else are too expensive under President Joe Biden. 

'That's why I don’t have bacon anymore, it's too expensive,' Trump volunteered. 

At another moment, Trump brought up the state's former Gov. Chris Christie.

'Does anybody like Chris Christie?' he asked the massive crowd. 

Nos rang out throughout. 

Christie ran against Trump in the GOP primary earlier this year, as the most prominent anti-Trump Republican. 

His message didn't resonate with early state voters and he dropped out ahead of the January 15 Iowa caucuses, refusing to endorse a different candidate on his way out. 

'So I was in New Hampshire and he was fighting, fighting, like totally unhinged,' Trupm said of Christie, adding that he was as 'major case of Trump derangement syndrome.' 

'And somebody from the front row said, "Sir, he's a fat pig." The person was a nice person. I said, "You cannot call Chris Christie a fat pig ... please sir, if you call him a fat pig once more I'm going have to have you leave the arena,"' Trump said he said.

'And the guy didn't know what was happening,' Trump continued. 'I said, don't worry about it, I'm only kidding. But I said you cannot call him a fat pig because you're not allowed to use the fat word.' 

'You know you can use almost any word but you can't use the fat word - it's career ending, if you call somebody fat, it's career ending,' the ex-president added.

And then Trump volunteered: 'We're all fat.'  

'I know the shore better than most of the people here,' Trump also boasted several minutes into his speech, recalling that he once owned three Atlantic City casinos.

Trump's most devoted supporters started camping out on the Jersey beach Thursday night - a full 48 hours before the ex-president was slated to speak.

They battled wind, some rain and temperatures that hung just above 50 degrees - unseasonably chilly for mid-May. 

At the nearby boardwalk, shops were crammed with MAGA merchandise - hats, t-shirts, bootie shorts and even gold booties - to resemble Trump's Sneaker Con $400 kicks. 

The rally was held ocean-front between two boardwalk amusement parks, with many Trump supporters splayed out on the sand as they waited hours for the ex-president to speak. 

Around 4 p.m. Trump Force One flew over the crowd - which the overhead announcer claimed numbered 80,000. 

Warm-up acts included Mike Crispi, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2022. 

He predicted that Trump would soon surpass Biden in New Jersey presidential polls. 

An Emerson College poll from late March showed the Democratic president with a five-point advantage over Trump in the Garden State, with third-party hopefuls Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein factored in. 

In a two-person race, Biden was beating Trump by six. 

'It turns out the fine people of New Jersey don't like higher taxes, they don't like foreign wars and they don't like a president who can't stay awake all day,' Crispi told the crowd, seemingly unaware of the reports that Trump had fallen asleep during in court during the hush money trial.

Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew was also on hand. 

Despite Trump pushing that he liked in-person, Election Day-only voting, Van Drew - who represents Wildwood in Congress - encouraged the MAGA movement, this time, to vote early.

'I want every man and woman who's here, every political leader who's here, to make sure that we have a record amount of early voting,' he said.