Chris Christie on Tuesday explained why some voters might consider him “shady” and also said he had “plenty of thoughts” about Donald Trump’s “schlonged” comment — but he doesn’t want to talk it, he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.”
The New Jersey governor told a story about a voter who confronted him on Monday who said, “How do you convince me you’re not shady and you’re actually here to help us?”
Christie told Tapper that that voter’s perception probably just came down to him being from New Jersey.
“I think what we concluded — he and I had a conversation back and forth about it — was he said, ‘Well, it’s probably because you’re from New Jersey,’ ” Christie said. “You know, so listen, there are just certain cultural things that get baked in in some people’s minds, after you know, ‘Jersey Shore’ and ‘The Sopranos,’ that make people think certain ways.”
Tapper also pressed Christie on whether he thought a president should use language like “schlonged” after Trump employed it to describe Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Democratic primary loss to President Barack Obama.
Christie repeatedly said he would not comment, but when asked a third time why he didn’t have any thoughts on the issue, Christie explained, “I didn’t say I had no thoughts, I said I had no interest. That’s different — plenty of thoughts, no interest in discussing it.”
Christie, who has established a foothold in New Hampshire in the last month or so, also kept up his attacks on Marco Rubio, blasting the Florida senator for missing a Senate vote on the $1.1 trillion budget deal passed last week.
“I can guarantee this, if I said that there was a bill that came to my desk that I was opposed to, I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to veto it by not showing up in New Jersey,” Christie said.