With his time in office set to conclude at the end of this month, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gave an exit interview to NJ.com.

Among many assertions and claims he made was this: he honestly believes he’d be president today if Donald Trump had not entered the 2016 race.

“It’s incredibly frustrating to think to yourself, ‘Wow, if this guy were not in the race, we’d win this thing,’” Christie said, reflecting on some internal polling from the campaign. “And I absolutely believe if Trump had not gotten into the race I think we would have won.”

Christie’s job approval rating in New Jersey was just 15 percent last summer, as he drew outrage for sunbathing on a publicly-funded beach while the state government was in a budget shutdown.

Christie described his GOP presidential primary run as “incredibly exciting” but that it was “ultimately frustrating” because voters he and his wife met said they loved him but were voting for Trump.

He also said that when Trump took jabs at him on the campaign trail by bringing up the ‘Bridgegate’ scandal, he personally called Trump to tell him to cut it out.

During the GOP primary, Christie came in 10th in the Iowa caucus and 6th in the New Hampshire primary. He suspended his campaign a day after the NH primary and endorsed Trump shortly thereafter.

In the interveiw Christie also said:

• He grades himself as a B+ governor (with “A moments”) and thinks people will come to the same conclusion.
• He says he doesn’t care about his bad poll numbers, but blames them on the media — mostly the New Jersey press and other “know-nothing voyeurs” — who he said attacked him mercilessly after Bridgegate with a “floodgate” of negative stories and attention.
• He concedes that scandal over closed lanes on the George Washington Bridge changed the course of his administration and political career because he lost “the benefit of the doubt.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)