Christie: I Was Not ‘Held Hostage’ At Trump Press Conference!

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie makes a point during his budget address, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, in Trenton, N.J. (Clem Murray/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday addressed those who mocked his stone-faced expression during a press conference on Super Tuesday.

“No, I wasn’t being held hostage,” Christie said at a press conference in New Jersey. “I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t angry.”

The governor explained that because it was a press conference, not a rally, he did not think it would be “appropriate” for him to smile, cheer and clap.

“This is part of the hysteria of the people who oppose my Trump endorsement,” Christie said.

He also addressed those who have criticized his absence from New Jersey during his own presidential campaign and then on the campaign trail for Trump.

“I don’t think it was too much,” Christie said of his time away from the state.

He said that he is not a “full time surrogate for Trump,” just an endorser. He said that he does not yet have concrete plans to campaign for Trump, but that he will likely do so “on occasion.”

When asked about the New Jersey newspapers who called on Christie to resign over his support for Trump and time spent away from the state on the campaign trail, the governor said he was not shocked.

“They are trying to find some way to be relevant,” he said of the newspapers, which he said are seeing a decline in revenue.

Christie seemed unfazed by Mitt Romney’s speech denouncing Trump.

“We have a political disagreement,” he said. “It will not change the extraordinary respect that I have for Gov. Romney.”

Christie added that some wish Romney would endorse a candidate in the Republican presidential primary.

When asked about Trump’s interview in which he avoided disavowing former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Christie said that Trump is “not a bigot.”

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