New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is defending Maine Gov. Paul LePage, who recently apologized for a remark widely denounced as racist.
“It doesn’t change a bit for me my affection for him, my respect for him, as a leader and as a person, and he’s a good man, Christie said in an interview set to air MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday. “He’s apologized.”
“We can’t judge people by one set of remarks they make,” Christie said.
“We all know that he shoots from the hip, and when he does that there are going to be times when even he, in retrospect, thinks he shouldn’t have said [something].”
Discussing the opiate epidemic facing Maine, LePage out-of-state drug dealers “with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty — these types of guys — they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home.”
“Half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave,” LePage said.
Christie and LePage, as two of Republican governors of northeastern states, have often campaigned together. As he stumpts in New Hampshire ahead of the state’s Republican primary, Christie has touted the Maine Governor’s support.
