WEEKEND MEMO: The bully in Chris Christie is emerging! First, he aimed to discredit Bridget Kelly at his two-hour press conference last month, and now that David Wildstein’s lawyer has spoken out–is Wildstein next? “You know, I was the class president and athlete,” Christie said during his January press conference. “I don’t know what David was doing during that period of time.” Flash forward to this past weekend when the Christie team published a background document about Wildstein’s teenage years, which included the time Wildstein “sued over a local school board election.”
THE DAM IS BREAKING: One of Christie’s subpoenaed staffers resigned over the weekend, making her the second person to leave the administration since details of the scandal broke last month. Christina Renna, who was Christie’s director of intergovernmental affairs, said in a statement from her lawyer that her decision to leave had been one in the making since shortly after Christie won re-election.
If the high school attacks and the high-level departures weren’t enough to reveal the cracks in the foundation, it appears the popular governor is now losing the support of his own fans: Christie was booed at a Super Bowl event in New York City over the weekend while onstage with Governors Andrew Cuomo and Jan Brewer, and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio.
WHAT DID THE FOX SAY?: Bill O’Reilly interviewed President Obama on Sunday before the Super Bowl–and spent the majority of the interview defending himself against Republican talking points, from the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov to the Benghazi scandal that House Republicans continue to pursue.
O’REILLY: “Your detractors believe that you did not tell the world [Benghazi] was a terror attack because your campaign didn’t want that out…That’s what they believe.”
OBAMA: “And they believe it because folks like you tell them that…These kinds of things keep on surfacing in part because you and your TV station will promote them.”
Read the full transcript of O’Reilly’s interview with the president here.
IN OTHER NEWS…
- QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I think you should be serious about what you do because this is it. This is the only life you’ve got.” –Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found dead at 46 in his New York City apartment on Sunday
- NUMBER(S) OF THE DAY: 43 to 8–that was the final score of Super Bowl XLVIII. Quite the blow out for a championship game…
- POLL OF THE DAY: Bill Clinton is the country’s most forgivable “liar,” according to a new CBS-Vanity Fair poll. Clinton received 43% of the vote, followed by Lance Armstrong at 22%, Richard Nixon at 12%, and then Bernie Madoff at 3%.
Traci Lee