Christie: ‘I Won’t Let’ 2016 Presidential Speculation Distract Me
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FEYERICK: "You told the kids in the classroom just a bit ago that you're not running for president, but everybody's talking about you running for president. The question is, how do you keep that from becoming a major distraction over the next couple of years as you govern the state of New Jersey?"
CHRISTIE: "Yeah, I don't get distracted very easily. It takes a lot to distract me, and I think the way it won't be a distraction is I just simply won't let it. Listen, Deborah, one of the things you saw in 2010 and 2011 was that there was enormous speculation about me running for president then, and I would get asked about it almost at every press conference, even though the entire time I was saying, 'no, I'm not running.' Until finally I had a press conference to once again say I wasn't running. All right, so I've gone through this before, and we achieved a lot during that time. So it's not new to me ... If it comes again, it comes again. I think that's nothing but good for the people of New Jersey because they wouldn't be speculating about somebody who wasn't doing their job well, and so if they're speculating about me, that means I'm continuing to do my job well ... So I've never seen it as a distraction -- I've never -- and by the way, I've said before, I don't see it as a burden either. You have to have a huge ego, right? 'Oh, please, it's such a burden for you to be speculating about me being the leader of the free world. Stop, I'm so burdened.' I mean, you know, that's a pretty huge ego to be complaining about that. It's complimentary. It's flattering. And I have no problem with it. But I'm going to be really clear about this, I have a job to do. I got re-elected to do a job last night. That's the job I'm going to do, and I'm not worried about all this other stuff. If the time comes where I change my mind, and I decide I want to do something else, I'll tell the people of New Jersey I want to do something else, but this is what I want to do, that's why I ran for re-election."
