Marco making fun of Trump for spelling choker "C-H-O-K-E-R" got some bad news there bud pic.twitter.com/Bz7eGA4N34 — Nick W. Schaller (@NeastWS) February 26, 2016 
 
 At a campaign rally on Friday morning, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida took out his phone and read from Donald Trump's Twitter account, hoping to mock the GOP front-runner. Things did not go according to plan. 
 
 Rubio made fun of Trump's spelling of the word "choker"—except that Trump's tweet, as Rubio read it, spelled the word correctly. "He spelled choker C-H-O-K-E-R," Rubio said. "Chocker." 
 
 Trump did misspell the word in an earlier tweet, which he deleted. ||||| A day after his pounding by rival Marco Rubio in a Republican presidential debate, Donald Trump picked up the endorsement Friday of former opponent Chris Christie, who immediately joined him in fiercely attacking the Florida senator as unfit for the presidency. 
 
 
 
 “I can guarantee you that the one person that Hillary and Bill Clinton do not want to see on that stage come next September is Donald Trump,” Christie, New Jersey's governor, said at a news conference with the New York billionaire in Fort Worth. 
 
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 Christie is the first prominent figure in the Republican establishment to embrace the sometimes crude iconoclast businessman at a time when many in the party are struggling to reckon with the reality that Trump is its most likely White House nominee. 
 
 The surprise announcement of Christie’s support served to fortify Trump’s counterattack against Rubio, whose blistering assault on his business record dominated the debate Thursday in Houston and marked a major shift in strategy for the freshman senator. 
 
 In Fort Worth, Christie argued that Rubio represents the Washington establishment that Trump would take on as president. Speaking to a crowd of thousands at a Trump rally, Christie reprised the withering attacks he used to damage Rubio in a debate before the New Hampshire primary. 
 
 “President of the United States is not a no-show job like you treated the United State Senate,” Christie said. 
 
 The volleys between Rubio and Trump intensified on Friday. After months of declining to attack Trump, Rubio suddenly adopted the reality television star's tactic of hurling personal insults with abandon. 
 
 Rubio told supporters at a morning rally in Dallas that Trump had a meltdown backstage during a break in the debate and got extra makeup to cover his sweat mustache. 
 
 “He wanted a full-length mirror, maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet,” Rubio said. 
 
 Later, in Oklahoma City, Rubio told reporters that Trump is “a con man who’s taking advantage of people’s fears and anxieties about the future.” 
 
 “This is a guy who claims to stand for the working class when in fact his entire business career he’s been sticking it to working-class Americans,” he said. 
 
 “This is a guy who claims he’s the strongest anti-immigration person in the race, and yet he uses illegal immigrants to build Trump Tower, and has imported foreign workers to take away jobs from Americans in my own home state.” 
 
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 Polls suggest Trump is the favorite to win most, if not all, of the 12 states that will hold Republican nominating contests Tuesday. After Trump’s previous victories in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, that would make it extremely hard for Rubio or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to win enough delegates to stop Trump from capturing the nomination. 
 
 “I think it’s time to coalesce around someone that can beat him and stop him, but also around someone that can unite the party and grow it,” Rubio said. 
 
 In Fort Worth, Trump let loose on Rubio, calling him a desperate liar who lacks the demeanor to be president. 
 
 "He is a nervous Nellie,” Trump told reporters, saying Rubio applies television makeup with a trowel. “I watch him backstage. He’s a mess.” 
 
 Trump ridiculed Rubio for his profuse sweating. 
 
 “Can you imagine Putin sitting there waiting for a meeting, and Rubio walks in, and he’s totally drenched,” Trump asked. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never seen a human being sweat like this man sweats.” 
 
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 He paid tribute to Christie for his attack on Rubio in New Hampshire , saying the senator had an “epic meltdown” that left him looking like he’d just emerged from a swimming pool. “Good going, Chris,” Trump said. 
 
 Still, in the aftermath of Thursday's debate, Rubio and Cruz succeeded in keeping Trump on defense about his refusal to release his tax returns. 
 
 “Until my audit is finished, you’re not going to see anything,” Trump said, despite telling the media months ago that he would release his tax returns. “When it’s finished, you’re going to see it.” 
 
 He also defended himself against Rubio’s criticism over a fraud lawsuit involving the now-defunct Trump University, which offered seminars in hotels on how to get rich in real estate. 
 
 Trump described the case as “just people trying to get their money back.” 
 
 “It’s a peanut case,” he said. “It’s a very small case. I will end up winning.” 
 
 Times staff writer Noah Bierman contributed to this report. 
 
 Twitter: @finneganLAT 
 
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 Desperate towel-snapping as GOP candidates try to take down Trump 
 
 Marco Rubio was ready to fight and other takeaways from the latest GOP debate 
 
 South Carolina black voters say they know Hillary Clinton well enough to pass on Bernie Sanders
– Thing are getting downright personal in the GOP race. A sampling of some of Friday's remarkable back and forth and between Marco Rubio and the new team of Trump-Christie, via the New York Times, the Hill, the Los Angeles Times and Mother Jones: Trump: "It's Rubio!" he said while holding up a water bottle, dumping some on stage, and pretending to guzzle from the bottle, all to mock Rubio's penchant for getting thirsty in the spotlight. Here's the video. Rubio: “He was having a meltdown,” he said of Trump during commercial breaks of Thursday's debate. “He was applying makeup around his mustache, because he had one of those sweat mustaches.” Trump: “You had to see him backstage. He was putting on makeup with a trowel. I don’t wanna say that. I will not say that he was trying to cover up his ears. I will not say that. He was just trying to cover up—he was just trying to cover up the sweat that pours … Did you ever see a guy sweat like this?” Rubio: In explaining why Trump had a full-length mirror backstage: “Maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet. I don’t know." Trump: “I honestly thought he was going to die. ... He was so scared, like a little frightened puppy, and he kept saying the Obama phrase over and over," referring to Rubio's reaction of Christie's criticism during an earlier debate. Rubio: "A tough guy? This guy inherited $200 million, he’s never faced any struggle." Christie: "Part of his talking points now is to be entertaining and smile a lot now,” he said of Rubio. “Listen, it’s one act after another.” Rubio: He mocked Trump for misspelling "choker" as "chocker" in an anti-Rubio tweet. One problem? Rubio said this: "He spelled choker C-H-O-K-E-R. Chocker," accidentally spelling it correctly. Peanut gallery: “I think Emily Post would be totally just turning in her grave right now,” a 52-year-old woman at a Rubio rally in Oklahoma City tells the New York Times. “Anyone can say anything."