New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie shrugged off Bridgegate and claimed he is “readier” to become president than ever before.
In his first interview since the lane-closing scandal broke in full on Jan. 8, Christie said his presidential aspirations were still very much alive.
“I think it is most likely that the Republican nominee for president [in 2016] will be a governor,” he told Yahoo News.
When asked if he felt differently now — compared with 2011, when he said he wasn’t ready to be president — he replied, “Yeah, I’m readier, if that’s a word.”
Asked about a personal style that critics call abrasive, Christie described being comfortable with himself.
“I think I’m a fairly good politician,” he said. “I’m not growing a new personality at 51. Not me, man. This is it. I like who I am.”
Christie’s remarks were reported Monday as two members of his team denied they threatened to withhold millions of dollars in Hurricane Sandy relief money to Hoboken if the city’s mayor didn’t support a Christie-backed redevelopment program.
Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno said Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s claims are “false” and “illogical.”
New Jersey Community Affairs Commissioner Richard Constable urged prosecutors to look into what he called Zimmer’s “patently false and absurd” accusations.
“I welcome a full and thorough law-enforcement review of her libelous claims,” Constable said.
Starting Saturday, Zimmer has accused both Constable and Guadagno of passing on the heavy-handed threat.
She is standing by her words.
“I . . . remain willing to testify under oath, and I will continue to answer any questions asked of me by the US Attorney’s Office,” Zimmer said.
In his Yahoo interview, Christie said that Bridgegate has been an education for him, but that he doesn’t know what the lesson is.
“I will learn things from this,” he said. “I know I will. I don’t know exactly what it is yet that I’ll learn from it. But when I get the whole story and really try to understand what’s going on here, I know I’m going to learn things.”
In a Jan. 9 press conference following disclosure that a top aide launched the retaliatory George Washington Bridge lane closings that caused traffic chaos, Christie said he was “blindsided.”
Meanwhile, a fresh accusation arose Monday from Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, who said Christie dropped a plan to appoint him the state’s first physical-fitness ambassador when Lewis launched a political campaign against a Christie friend.
Christie called to dissuade him from running for state Senate in 2011 against Republican Sen. Dawn Addiego, Lewis said, adding the governor threatened that a physical-fitness program they’d been developing wouldn’t materialize if he ran.