Governor Chris Christie Reflects on his Eight Years in Office

Steve Adubato sits down with New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie during one of his only on-air exit interviews, discussing his 8 years in office, the future of New Jersey, and what's next for his career.

12/14/17 #2094

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"Hi, I'm Steve Adubato. We are at the NJTV Studio here in beautiful Newark, New Jersey. Brick City. It's a very special interview. We are honored to have the 55th Governor of the great state of New Jersey, Chris Christie. Governor, thank you for joining us. My pleasure Steve. A couple things to get out of the way. Sure. We're taping on the 22nd of... excuse me, the 27th of November. January 16th, Phil Murphy will be the new governor of the state. How many days left? 49. How did you know that? Just like that? It's right in there baby. [laughter] It's in your head. I've had this job, it's 2,920 days if you get two terms. Wow. 2,920 days. The thing you're most proud of is? Things, plural? Well, I mean, first off, I think the response to Hurricane Sandy will always be kind of the defining moment of the governorship for me, was enduring that, and then bringing the state back from that. And we are almost completely back from that now, and did it in five years. It's just pretty extraordinary when you compare it to other natural disasters around the country. New Jersey did it better than New York, it did it better than Louisiana or Mississippi, and I'll always be incredibly proud of that. Let's keep talking. By the way, for those of you who want to go back and see previous interviews with Governor Christie, you remember some of those? Yeah, we had some... yeah. Spirited dialogue? Spirited dialogue. Yeah, live call ins. One on One... You're going all the way back to the US Attorney days? Oh yeah, go back... www.steveadubato.org, isn't that a great...? Great website. Great website? Have it on my favorites. It's gonna start already. [laughter] Here we go. Let's talk about some areas of your governorship that I've always been fascinated by, and one of them is the issue of leadership style. You and I have had so many offline, as well as online, conversations about leadership. Biggest leadership lesson you have learned, Governor, in these eight years, is? I can't hold grudges. You? Yeah. Go ahead, play it out. Because there are gonna be... when you have divided government, as we've had here in New Jersey. Explain to folks about... Republican governor, Democratic legislature, the entire length of my governorship, all eight years. So you have to deal with folks who philosophically are not necessarily always in line with you. And even from a process perspective, may not be in line with you. You know, you're gonna have disagreements, and some of them are gonna be public, and some of them at times are gonna be emotional. They should be, because that's..."