Presidential candidate New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) defended Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) during an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday morning, after LePage came under fire last week for racially charged remarks about heroin dealers impregnating “white women” in his state.
“I heard Paul’s remarks and frankly, he’s apologized for them,” Christie said during an interview taped Saturday in South Carolina.
LePage was one of the first public officials to endorse Christie’s presidential run. LePage later admitted he didn’t know the race of the drug dealers (“D-Money, Smoothie” and “Shifty”) he was referring to and said the media had made his comments “racist.”
“He’s a good man and he’s apologized,” Christie continued. “Everyone of us — me and everybody else who’s in public life — says things at times they wish they could take back.”
Christie said “we all know” that LePage is “an outspoken guy.”
“It doesn’t change a bit for me, my affection for him, my respect for him as a leader and as a person,” he said.
Watch the clip, from MSNBC, below:
