The outgoing governor had his eye on issues both national and local, both involving a shift of power. One in the U.S. Senate and the other in the State House. Senior Correspondent David Cruz reports.
Cruz: Governor, is there a takeaway from Alabama? Is there a takeaway for the nation on what happened there yesterday?
Christie: Yeah, a guy who didn’t deserve to be elected, didn’t get elected.
Cruz: In a broader context, the president’s involvement, etc.?
Christie: I think you’re missing the point if you talk about a broader context. I don’t think it has anything to do with Donald Trump. I don’t think it has anything to do with anybody other than Roy Moore. Roy Moore was unfit to be in the United States Senate, and now he won’t be and the people of Alabama made that determination. I always had confidence in the fact that they would, so to me, I think it’s just an affirmation of the fact that our democracy works.
Cruz: If the president weighed in doesn’t that make it a broader question?
Christie: No, I don’t think it does. I think races, you’ve heard me say this a lot of times before, David, I think races are always about the candidates. I think endorsements are relatively useless for the most part. I think in the end, people looked at Roy Moore and his record, and his record not only on the allegations that were made, but a lot of other disturbing parts of his record and things that he has said that to me just don’t belong in public life in our country. So, the people of Alabama made the call and I watched the returns on Tuesday night and thought, they got it right.
Cruz: The letter you got from Phil Murphy seemed to have struck a nerve, ticked you off a little bit.
Christie: It did not. The characterization of my response, David, I’ve been ticked off plenty at you in eight years and you’ve never have to read into whether I’m ticked off or not. Listen, my response to the governor-elect was based upon the unfortunate, ignorant information that he got from his staff. And that’s why I repeated in the letter a number of times that he needs to hear this stuff directly because he’s got a very inexperienced staff of people who have not been very involved in the budgeting process at all. The only person that I’ve seen involved in this process who really understands the budgeting is Mayor McCormac, but other than that, there’s nobody that understands budgeting in the least. The thing I was concerned about was that I’ve kept everything that had been discussed between me and the governor-elect confidential, and it disturbs me when a letter that he sends to me privately, especially a little handwritten note at the bottom, it was very personal, that should remain between he and I. We were crafting a reply to the letter, because there was a lot of detail that I wanted to give him, so I asked the state treasurer to draft a reply for me and then I would edit it with my own thoughts in it. And then I find out on Sunday that that’s in the hands of the press and it shocked me that that happened. He has this very elaborate nondisclosure agreement procedure that’s unprecedented to do and I thought that this nondisclosure agreement stuff would actually cause this stuff not to happen. So that’s why I made the suggestion at the beginning of the letter that maybe he needs to review his NDA procedure so this kind of stuff wouldn’t happen again in the future. Because I think it’s really important for governors to be able to have confidential conversations with each other about issues and problems so that everybody can be completely candid.
Cruz: Inexperienced or were they just being cheeky by leaking the letter?
Christie: I don’t know because I don’t know who leaked it. Listen, I think it’s fairly obvious that previous administrations, some have been known for leaking more than others. You and I have discussed many times that our administration has not been a great leaking administration. We like to keep things private and quiet and not break government that way. Gov. Corzine’s was very much the same way, not a lot of leaking in the Corzine administration. Now, if you go back to the Codey administration, that was a leak fest. I hope that it’s not that Mr. Cammarano is now coming back into government and he’s now leading the charge towards governing by leaking. I trust it wasn’t him, given that he was given such an important position, but it raises concerns and I think it should raise concerns for the governor-elect. We had the state treasurer sitting there, we gave them not only current budget expenditures, but budget projections and revenue projections. We opened up the books to them and we’re continuing to do that. But I think the governor-elect, and that’s what I suggested in my letter, needs to sit and listen to this personally because he is somewhat, I suppose given his background, somewhat of a financial expert so I think he would understand this stuff much more clearly than some of the very young and inexperienced people that he sent to listen to the briefings.
Cruz: What do you think of his choices so far, Muoio today for treasury and yesterday Grewal.
Christie: I put out a statement on Prosecutor Grewal. I think it’s a fabulous choice. I worked really hard as you know, for three years, I fought to put Gurbir in as the Bergen County prosecutor. I fought the Democrats in Bergen County, like Loretta Weinberg and Paul Sarlo who did not want him to be the prosecutor. Now all of a sudden they’re a champion of him. I think it’s great that the governor-elect has picked a Christie person to be the attorney general, so I commend him for it. I think it’s a great thing. I think Gurbir will do a great job. I think he’s done a very good job in Bergen County and I think he’ll grow into this job. He’s got great background experience as the assistant U.S. attorney and now as a county prosecutor. I’m very optimistic about how he’ll do.
