Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), who was on vacation in Disney World during last weeks’ big snowstorm, returned to the state on Friday to defend his absence — and to blast the local mayors’ handling of the situation.
“I wouldn’t change the decision even if I could do it right now,” Christie told reporters on New Year’s Eve, the Star Ledger reports. “I had a great five days with my children. I promised that.” He also added that his wife Mary Pat told him to not “even think about” canceling the trip.
“I would have been doing the same thing here as I was there,” Christie said. “I would not have been out driving a plow. I would be in a room somewhere on a telephone. That’s exactly the same thing I was doing in Florida.”
[TPM Slideshow: Christmas Snowpocalypse: Blizzard Blankets The East Coast]
Also, as the Star Ledger reports:
When asked about the hundreds of people trapped in their homes for days, Christie said unless they lived on state roads, it’s not something his administration would have been able to change.
“If someone is snowed into their house, that’s not our responsibility,” Christie said.
When asked about mayors who said they were forced to divert their resources to unplowed state roads instead of clearing local roads Christie said, “I know who these mayors are and they should buck up and take responsibility for the fact that they didn’t do their job.”
As we posted last week, both Christie and his Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno were out of state at the same time, leaving Democratic state Senate President Joseph Sweeney to become Acting Governor, declare a state of emergency and preside over the government’s response. It later emerged that Guadagno was out of state because she was on a two-week cruise with her father, who has cancer, which shifted media attention away from her and back onto Christie.
