New Jersey Governor Chris Christie slapped down notions that his
Tuesday RNC speech was a selfish play for a future presidential run, as
CNN's Piers Morgan said he talked about himself much more than Mitt
Romney.
"Oh, listen – at the end of the day, what I was doing was building the case for Mitt Romney. Do you think there's anybody here who doesn't know his name?" Christie responded. "I mean, this is really kind of silly stuff."
"But listen, I understand that folks in the media have nothing better to do but to do that kind of stuff. And they want to create controversy. I understand that, because these conventions have become kind of prepackaged shows and you all want to have something different to talk about," Christie continued.
"If you look at the substance of the speech last night, which is what I'm most concerned about, it lays out a very clear case that we need to tell people the truth, we need to make hard choices and we need to implement that now," Christie explained the core of his speech.
[Video below the break.]
A transcript of the segment, which aired during CNN's Republican National Convention coverage on August 29 at 9:31 a.m. EDT, is as follows:
[9:31]
PIERS MORGAN: But they
weren't sure if you were doing it for your own future presidential race
or for Mitt Romney's current presidential race.
Governor CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-N.J.): Oh I don't know how people can be
confused. I laid out the case for Mitt Romney, as a former governor,
that if you do the things at the state level like we've done them in
New Jersey, it can be done at the national level. If you get someone
who knows what they're doing – and I don't think anybody was really
confused at the end of the night (Inaudible).
MORGAN: Well, the confusion came because you didn't mention his name
for 17 minutes. And by the end of the speech, you had mentioned the
word "I" 37 times and the word "Mitt" 7 times.
CHRIS CHRISTIE: Oh, listen – at the end of the day, what I was doing
was building the case for Mitt Romney. Do you think there's anybody
here who doesn't know his name? I mean, this is really kind of silly
stuff. But listen, I understand that folks in the media have nothing
better to do but to do that kind of stuff. And they want to create
controversy. I understand that, because these conventions have become
kind of prepackaged shows and you all want to have something different
to talk about. But I can tell you this. If you look at the substance of
the speech last night, which is what I'm most concerned about, it lays
out a very clear case that we need to tell people the truth, we need to
make hard choices and we need to implement that now.