The governor was at a Jewish Community Center where he told the largely Jewish audience his trip to Israel was a success — it broadened his understanding of Jewish culture and gave him an appreciation of Israel’s precarious security and opened up trade opportunities.

At a private dinner with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said they spent most of the time talking about raising their children.

“And the challenges that are presented by raising children in the world today and the additional challenges that are raised by having children being parented by people in the public eye,” said Christie.

After meeting with the Jewish community for over an hour, Christie took his first press questions since returning from Israel. On matters like yesterday’s GAO report disputing his numbers on the 2010 decision to cancel the ARC tunnel project.

He said GAO investigators misunderstood the depth of New Jersey’s exposure to cost overruns. The GAO is an arm of Congress.

“I don’t think anybody in New Jersey needs advice from Congress about how to spend money. We see what a mess they’re in down there and I think the people in New Jersey are comfortable with the fact that I made the evaluation before this and canceled it as a result. Secondly, the implication that somehow I should have let this project go forward and left it to later because they would have worked something out with us on the cost overruns — that’s akin to ‘I’m here from Washington and I’m here to help.'”

The ARC tunnel would have opened up frail capacity beneath the Hudson at a cost of anywhere from $9 to $13 billion. Senator Frank Lautenberg requested the GAO report.

“I’m happy to be criticized by Frank Lautenberg and The New York Times. I take that as a badge of honor, it actually means I’m doing something right for the taxpayers in this state.”

Bottom line according to Christie, it wasn’t he who was spinning numbers.

Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron reports.

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