anchor: from our studios in new york city. this is charlie rose. charlie: i them please do have bonnie rate back at the studio. you know 20 years, 1995. how are you? >> i am great. i am getting ready to start the second leg of our tour. years.: 45 >> it started in 1970. charlie: you have talked about the word gratitude, but it is

also passion for music. >> that is what makes going home during the tour breaks, you start thinking, i miss that. adulation, itfan is mostly the playing, and the songs, and the feeling with the audience. charlie: it is my keeps you young, everything. >> you can't beat it. ♪

charlie: how did you find the blues? >> since i was a little girl and i first heard "blueberry hill." sometimes people separate rhythm and blues, but for me, soulful funky blues is something i have loved. i have tended to love ou free throw richer flan franklin.-- arethra it puts the roll in rock. charlie: you once said, that your guitar sounds like they can bacon smells. charlie: i was trying to think

of something on the spot that was undeniably good. on the edge of guilty. there is nothing like it feels to play, or just with an acoustic guitar. but the slide guitar is so expressive. it never stops giving. charlie: he said the best. >> i thanked him for it. if i never got anything else, i would be able to live on that. charlie: you are on the road, too. >> on the road is the fun part. coming up with album after album of songs, when you find a great song. i do not write my own stuff that much, but when i find something that suits me, and i work with my great band, it is the coming up with the record and the promotion is not my favorite part, but it is important. but the touring part is the pay

off. that is the fun part. charlie: that is where the crowds are. the connection to the audience. >> the thing that happens when you are playing is undescribable. it is like an anointed exultation. you forget all the aches and pains. you used to see it with my dad. charlie: your dad used to watch my show. >> of course. he had cereal and watched charlie. charlie: you have to sing it. >> it is a great gift that they sent that song to me first. charlie: this is for you. >> it is great and a lot of people have covered it, including adele. prince did a version of it. >> did they send it to you? >> they did.

it andd the way i did the way i sang. thinks the song it hi people remember me for the most. charlie: i like "need you tonight." >> pretty sexy. ♪ ♪

charlie: we turn now to iraq and syria. the coalition will include arab, kurdish and turkish fighters. ash carter welcomed british and french officials, also pledging aerial support. isis seized raqqi turning the city into its strategic

headquarters. the battle for mosul continues, putting isis on the defensive. joining me now from washington, eric smith of "the new york times." tell me what this means. >> think of this as a one two punch. mosul was the first punch and we are now in the week four of that campaign. this is the second punch and the idea is to put pressure on the islamic state from both sides, the headquarters in iraq and syria. this phase is the beginning of an encirclement by this kurdish and arab fighters on the ground, backed by u.s. special forces on the ground, to circle raqqa, the administrative capital of the islamic state and cut it off from fighters and ammunition, while they train arab fighters that will go into the city.

charlie: one of the dimensions is having people on the ground willing to come in and fight isis in syria, correct? >> that is right and that is what has been difficult. up until now, the u.s. has relied on this coalition of kurdish and arab fighters, but predominately, the kurdish fighters have taken a string of towns. they are needing to expand that force, which now numbers around 30,000 overall, the onlbut only4 of those are arab fighters. they do not have enough of those and they will use this period of time to also train up additional forces to go into the city itself. charlie: this will be a huge, if in fact they are successful in mosul and raqqa, a huge victory,

i assume for president obama. >> absolutely. it is unclear whether this will happen by the time of the inauguration next january. we are talking about weeks of operations to encircle the city, much less to take it down. the experts i spoke with yesterday were skeptical. they were skeptical the president would see the city of raqqa fall, but you never know. charlie: in fact, you could argue that they began the initiative that began the attack while he was president. >> absolutely. charlie: let's assume both efforts are successful with an sihin six months. what are the implications for isis, and the terrorism they represent? >> basically, taking away and denying the islamic state its caliphate, its religious state. that is how they distinguish themselves from other terrorist groups, including al qaeda. they have been able to establish

a state that governs and collects taxes. if you take that away, it is still a potent terrorist organization, but it is more like its predecessor, al qaeda. it will still pose a danger to the people in the region. it still has networks, of course, to europe and most of all, the concern for americans is that through its social media it can reach in and basically touch people here in the united states and hopefully inspire them to carry out attacks. charlie: who is the leader of the coalition? >> it is interesting, you have iraqi forces, but you have some 5000 american troops on the ground playing a very prominent role in iraq, both advising and assisting on the ground and of course, leading the airstrikes against the islamic state in iraq. syria, your side in have this coalition of militia. of course, it is not a state you

are dealing with, as they have in iraq. it is a coalition of various militia, kurdish and arab fighters, though turkey has provided some as well. there are only about 300 u.s. special forces on the ground advising. the u.s. helps to plan and carry out the attacks, and they carry up the majority of the airstrikes, but the majority of the forces on the ground are forces in syrian syria. charlie: we will be right back. stay with us. ♪

charlie: we turn now to an exclusive interview with governor chris christie of new jersey. he has served as governor since january 2010. last friday, two of his former aids were convicted in the so-called bridge gate trial. kellyaroni and bridget where found guilty on all counts. associatesni's pleaded guilty and became the prosecution's star witness. 2013hree were accused in of conspiring to close access lanes leading up to the george washington bridge in a scheme of political retaliation. the lane closures resulted in five days of gridlock.

ruling over the federal trial was the extent of governor christie's knowledge of the plot. the prosecution suggested chris christie was told about the closings. federal prosecutor paul fishman said he only sought indictment against people he believed a jury would convict beyond a reasonable doubt. governor christie was question hours.owtnder oath for 12 the scandal has been detrimental to his political career. he was passed over for the vice presidential mama nation, despite his early endorsement after his own campaign for the nomination failed. he says he has an waiting for three years to tell his side of the story and clear his name. i spoke with him on sunday at his home in new jersey and here is that conversation. chris christie: the jury

confirmed what i saw on january 9, 2014, three years ago. i had 24 hours to make decisions back then. there were three people responsible, david whil, and bridget kelly. here we are three investigations later, a federal grand jury investigation, an investigation led by a democratic led venture. they concluded three people were responsible. charlie: what doesy it say about you and your staff? that these people who work for you did this? >> baroni was appointed by me and i take responsible for him, but never for whilildstein. let me be clear on my staff. i thought about this in the last week. i have had 25 people serve on my senior staff over seven years and i had one person who did not get it.

i don't think it says anything about me. i think it says everything about that person. the fact is, 24 other people have served with great honor and integrity and effectiveness and i am so proud of all of them. some of them are still with me and some have gone on to other things in the private sector and public sector and to the senate. i am very proud of those people, but i am deeply disappointed with that one person. charlie: why do you think she did it? >> i wish i knew, charlie. i never could figure it out. it was one of the most objectively stupid things i have ever seen. i am pretty good at this political game. i am a by 25 points for 25lection -- i am up by points for reelection in a blue state. she showed some evidence of being scared. charlie: during the testimony. she even testified that you threw a bottle of water at her.

i cannot imagine someone like that doing something and not telling you, because she would be damn worried about the fact that if you discovered it, how you would react. >> the first thing is, she was not scared of me. the incident about the water bottle was a complete fabrication. charlie: never happened. >> there were a number of staff members and cabinet members who will tell you it never happened, and even the u.s. attorney himself on the steps of the courthouse said both defendants have complete we fabricated their testimony. don't take my word for it. take the u.s. attorney's word for it, who investigated this case for 15 months, who whileigated for 1a against baroni. the idea that somebody would think that this type of thing

made any sense is a complete mystery to me. hasow what the jury determined. they have determined that her story is untrue, that she was responsible for what happened, along with bill baroni and david wildstein. charlie: here is my "in your times" said. -- here is what the "new york times said." from witness after witness, the evidence of viciousness and thebing of the governoiness of governor, the picture of chris christie and his administration is devastating. >> from the "new york times." they have never written a positive editorial about me in seven years. firstly, consider the source. second, consider the facts. this is from the prosecution. in their closing argument, they

said seven different people came into this courtroom and directly contradicted the characterizations of the governor and the facts as put forward by bridget kelly. the prosecution said, who are you going to believe? bridget kelly, or seven other people who directly contradicted her? the jury found she was responsible, as was mr. baroni. charlie: and you do not know the motivation? >> i don't. i had never spoken to them. listen. i can only tell you what they said during the trial. charlie: it is not just her. david said he told you about it at the 9/11 memorial. >> that is not what he said, by the way. the first thing he said was that bill baroni told me. wildstein said that all

boaroni said to me that there was traffic at the george washington bridge and the mayor's phone calls were not being returned. i have absolutely no recollection of any of them saying anything like that to me that day. but even if they had. charlie: you are saying they have no recollection. you are not saying, they never said anything like that? you are saying, i don't remember? >> i don't remember. if they would have told me, we are greeting traffic at the george washington bridge to punish the mayor for not endorsing you, i would have remembered that. they never said that. charlie: richard kelly said at the beginning that she understood it to be a traffic study. >> correct. during the course of my administration there have been over 1000 traffic studies done, charlie. not one of them has ever been brought to me to ask me to approved it. so, this is the only one, over

1000 traffic studies done? it strains credulity. that is why the jury did not believe it. they did not believe somebody would walk into the governor of new jersey's office and ask them to approve a traffic study. it is ridiculous. i want everybody out there to understand this. even after all the headlines and all the buildup, no person has ever testified, even those convicted have not testified, that we said to the governor, this was an act of political retribution and he said, ok. charlie: they ask of the judge, do they have to find there was intent for a political retribution to convict. and the judge said, no. >> i understand. charlie, do you think for a second with all the things that were said during that trial, that if they had told me this was an act of political retribution that they would not

have said it? of course they would have. they never did. the only thing they ever told me, and by the way, i do not remember any of them ever telling me there was a traffic study. that is why it is in port in for me to tell you there are over 1000 traffic studies done. the first week of october, and these traffic studies happened during the first week of september. i saw a story in the "wall street journal" talking about the traffic study in september. charlie: this was one? >> the first week of october, 2013. andnt to my chief of staff handed them the story and asked them to find out what was going on. my chief counsel came back to me. oni, and hebill bar said it was a traffic study and the people of new york are just raising a big stink, but not to worry. charlie: he realized this was

abnormal, and you wanted to know why. >> i did not realize it was abnormal. i realized it was in the newspaper. i was in the middle of the reelection campaign. i found out about this some 30 days away from the election campaign. charlie: and you want to have a strong election because you are thinking about running for president too. >> first of all, i wanted to run for governor. >> but if you had a big margin, it would make running for president better. >> it would give me a powerful voice in my state. charlie: so it is not beyond reason that you wanted the endorsement of the mayor. >> we have 556 mayors in new jersey. charlie: you want every single one of them to endorse you. charlie: -- >> if you would come to me on october 1 of 2013, and asked me who the mayor of ft. worth was, i would not have been able to tell you his name. is this how the

politics is played in new jersey? >> if the constituencies are happy with you, you ask them to vote for you. charlie: i think they are referring to punishment. >> where is the evidence of that, charlie. people take one senior staffer and they try to make it out to be a culture. you know why? because they could not prove i had anything to do with it. the fallback position is if you cannot prove -- charlie: that is not what they are arguing. they are not saying that you conceived it. they are saying that they told you and you did nothing about it. >> take the testimony at face value. they said they told me there was a traffic study being done, all three of them. now, charlie, why would i think there was anything wrong with that. charlie: because you would know

that closing these lanes would create real problems. >> they did not tell me they were closing lanes. they said there was a traffic study. look at the testimony. charlie: if they had said that, would you have remembered it? >> no, the traffic in fort worth. charlie: and they laughed about it. they were bragging about it. that is what they said. >> that is his characterization of it. the characterization of an admitted liar and felon. laughed about what? charlie: they are suggesting you laughed about it because the guy who refused to endorse you was having problems with his constituents. ridiculous because it is not the words they used, but secondly, i am telling you, i could have cared less whether the mayor endorsed me because i did not know who he was. charlie: and you are saying

you did not need his endorsement anyway? >> charlie, i got 65% of the vote and i was up by 25 points. if this was so horrible, you know what happened on election day, i won fort lee handily, a democratic town that had this traffic problem two months ago, without the mayor's endorsement. this is a part of the hysteria that surrounds this. even the facts you just read out do not back up. for me, i say, i understand the hysteria and interest of the media, especially the media in this area, to make a big deal, but the bottom line is this. in january of 2014, i held three people responsible for this fiasco. charlie: when you fire them, what did they say? >> i did not fire them personally. charlie: you should have been so angry at these people.

you should have said to them, look me in the eye and tell me what you did this. you have damaged me. >> let's get to that chris: let's get to that. on december 13 of 2013, i called my untying your -- my entire senior staff together. i said to them with bridget kelly in the room as a member of the senior staff, i said, if anyone knows anything more about this traffic situation, you need to tell me now. right now. because i'm going out to do a press conference in an hour, and i am going to get asked about this, and i do not want to see anything that is untrue or incomplete so tell me. , they all sat silently. i said my chief of staff and counsel, bridget kelly said nothing to me in that room and she said nothing to my chief of staff. that she knew nothing about this. and then soon thereafter, charlie, she began to send emails. charlie: you know people were texting each other saying he is lying. chris: well, and she has now

since corrected what she said. she did not mean i was lying because she did not know what i knew. she said what i was saying about a member of the senior staff, no one knowing about political retribution was wrong because she believed bridget kelly knew. and she testified against bridget kelly. and let's room or what i was -- remember when i was asked. i was asked in that press conference, can you assure is that no member of your senior staff was involved in an active political retribution? and i said absolutely. each and every one of them. each and every one of them told me they were not. bridget kelly continues to say she was not through the time she was convicted by a jury on friday. charlie: and who has come forward who was in that meeting to tell what happened in that meeting? chri there was my policy chief at the time, member of senior staff. she testified in the trial vividly about that meeting. she said it was the most angry she had ever seen me and she worked all the way back to the u.s. attorney's office in 2006.

charlie: did you understand what this could do to you in terms of your ambition? chris: no. no. charlie: regardless of -- because of the testimony. chris: i do not know with the testimony was going to be. the u.s. attorney himself said the testimony was a fabrication. they lied on the stand. charlie: that is one of the reasons, the u.s. prosecutor said he is is seeking a higher, stronger penalty for those two david who came , forward and admitted his guilt area and knowing he would probably go to prison. chris: correct. people do that all the time. i did that job for seven years. charlie: they get a deal, then they risk being indicted for perjury. chris: that is right, it happens every day. it happens every day unfortunately. here's the thing. the judge will make that a valuation of mr. wildstein. when it is time. charlie: why do you think he did not seek an indictment against

you? the easy answer, he did not seem -- chris: i did not do anything wrong. charlie: he did not say that. you know what he said? he said, i did not think the government did anything wrong. what he said was i did not indict because i indicted people who i believe the jury would convict beyond a reasonable doubt. if i did not think, i do not bring indictments against people. chris: that is what attorneys are supposed to say. u.s. attorneys are not allowed in that way.ons you don't say i was innocent or guilty. the fact was it was a 15 month investigation and believe me, if , there was any evidence in this trial, there was not one person who came forward and testified that i had any involvement with political retribution. regarding this incident. not one. charlie: because this happened in your office you believed

people look at this trial and say, it is bad for chris christie. chris: well it is bad -- charlie: what happened in this trial is bad because people that had worked for him in one way or the other were engaged in something that put people's lives at risk some say. chris: at the end, of course. that is white january 9, 2014, i apologized for having trusted people who were undeserving of my trust. and i fired them. and that is all i could do, and was not a prosecutor anymore. and then we cooperated with every investigation, turned over every document, gave over my personal telephone and testified under oath at the u.s. attorney's office for hours. i did not hide his thing, and you know why? because i have nothing to hide. and those who have a partisan agenda will continue to attack me, but the reason i am happy to be sitting here with you today is because i have known for

three years i did nothing wrong and now this trial has happened, , and the people i held responsible three years ago have been held responsible by the united states attorney and a federal jury. and it is over now. charlie: if they lied to you about this, your characterization or not tell , you, is it possible they did other things that we do not know about? chris: having been a u.s. attorney and the power of federal grand jury subpoena , if there was anything else they could charge bridget kelly, they would have. charlie: do you figure will be reversed on appeal because of this question about intent political retribution intent? , chris: i don't know. there is no doubt it was an issue vigorously argued by both sides. we will see the third circuit. i really don't know. charlie: you think they did it for political retribution. chris: i don't know why. they never told me. they sat on the witness stand and said, that wasn't the reason. i do not know. chris: this is from jeff

goldberg who does not work for the new york times. he works for the atlantic. just became the editor of the atlantic. one of my -- his neediness made him entertaining, but it also caused him to betray his own principles. jeff goldberg. chris: jeff and i are friends, we are fellow springsteen fans, and that is not about bridge gate. that is about me endorsing donald trump, who just is genetically opposed to. -- jeff is genetically opposed to. good friends as you know and i'm sure you have gone through this in your life can have full legal -- can have political arguments and those do not extend to the character of the people. i do not think his character is flawed. once he comes down he will not think my character is flawed. charlie: one of the reason you want to set the record straight because of this, people look at this trial, and they view it , even though you were not on

trial -- chris: they would have thought i did -- i was. charlie: you were on trial. chris: unfair. imagine what it did to my family. charlie: what did it do? chris: my wife and my children, every to read this stuff day, which they know is untrue. liars sitting on the witness stand, three of them lying about their husband and their father. it has been an awful time for us. awful, because they would say, defend your self. and i would say, listen, you can't interfere with a trial. i was not called as a witness, i had no ability to defend myself and that is why i am here with , you because i am not going to stay silent any longer. charlie: this is the washington post, not the new york times on november 5. governor chris christie suffered a serious blow. the case presented a city stream of allegations that will haunt him. he is stained by scandal which shows a darker side to his tough guy image. attains his legacy -- yet taints

his legacy. approval is at 21%. even donald trump suggested that during the campaign. but that is what you are suffering from, that is what the oppression is, and you acknowledged that. chris: of course. of course. but if you sit there and you're being punched every day and you cannot punch back, why would you be surprised that bruises get raised? you can't punch back. charlie: if you could have punched back they would not be saying these things, but do you believe that bridge gate has damaged your political career? chris: of course. charlie: in what way? chris: the way you just talked about. the fact is is if the media and others attacked you relentlessly for three years, and you cannot defend yourself because you are in the middle of cooperating in the judicial process and cannot process, then if there is only one line of information that people will

believe the line of information they are being given. anything like that from the washington post is a snapshot in time. charlie: right. chris: i can't say how many times i thought my political career is over. here i am. and i will tell you this, what matters to me most is my reputation, and that is what i am fighting for. and that is why i am here telling you the truth of not only what i know but the truth of what happened in the trial. if you read the reports of the trial, you do not even know what happened there. charlie: there is also an thatstanding by some without bridge gate, you would have been the nominee for vice president, selected by donald trump. and in fact he told you at the time, he told you that you were his guy. chris: no. chris: he never said that. -- charlie: he never said that. he never said i want you to run with me?

do you believe you never got the nomination because of bridge gate? chris: no. charlie: do you believe it had any impact? chris: i will say that. when donald trump says he will not be president because of bridge gate. charlie: but he was suggesting. chris: i was being considered. chris: why do you think he chose mike pence over you? i am recording what they said about the 9/11, 9/11 memorial meeting. chris: charlie, -- charlie: listen to the words they said. even if you take david is an admitted liar, all of a sudden we have three people who are liars and not all of a sudden we know the old to their -- we know the gospel truth to their

words, without any problems who , directly contradicted these people. if you want to make the story, make the story. don't let the facts get in the way. but the facts are that not even the people convicted of these crimes has ever said in any form that they told me that this was some act of political retribution. let's get that straight. charlie: you said that in your statement. chris: scour the trial transcript. he was never said. you know why? even those people cannot bring themselves to say it because they know it is not true. and you know, the fact is that when your governor of new jersey or any big state, the idea that anybody is going to bring to you a traffic study for your approval is absurd. it is ridiculous. add to it bridget kelly who claims now to have been scared of me, yet she worked for me for four years and accepted a

promotion from someone she was supposedly scared of and was afraid to talk to. yet by the same token, she said she just casually walked into my office without an appointment, without a piece of paper, or without a briefing and asked me to approve something. anyone who has worked for me will tell you you do not come in without an appointment, a piece of paper, and ask the governor to approve something. but is not the way it works. that is a made up story, and do not take my word for it. the u.s. attorney has said that they lied on the witness stand. chris: i assume that this was because he was the defense attorney for bridget kelly. in his summary at the end, he said this was the mother of four children, and she was thrown under the bus. chris: i feel awfully, and i know it is open. i took her children talky games. i know her kids very well. it is the saddest part of the story. these children will have to go without their mother for some

time. a terrible thing, and i feel awfully about it. but let's be clear, whatever was said in the closing arguments, i would have been happy to appear at trial. it is an invitation-only party. there are only three people who are invited, the government, mr. baroni or miss kelly. charlie: one of them called you as a witness. chris: if i had i would have come. charlie: you would have relished coming? chris: i don't know about that. charlie: you said you had been waiting for three years to make your case, and this would have been in front of everybody under oath to make your case. chris: i have made my case under oath privately. charlie: what does that mean? chris: at the u.s. attorney's office. under oath. for hours. and i would have been happy to go to court and testify. and then there would not have -- would have been seven people who said she was lying. charlie: so in your career back to the question, do you intend

to run for office again? chris: we will see. right now i do not. but you never say never in this life. i am 54 years old. i am term limited as governor so my term here will end on january 18 of 2018. will i ever run for anything again is a decision i will make in the future. i will not preclude it. charlie: there are those who will argue like chris christie and bill bradley did not run when they should have and lost the chance to be president. because of what has happened since then. chris: i love the armchair quarterbacks who have never been in the arena and decide when others should run for the most important job in the world. charlie: you have never had that thought. after all that happened this year and donald trump won the nomination and you did not. maybe i should have gone in 2012? chris: never, not once. i was not ready to be president

in 2011. i was not ready. and charlie the only thing worse , than not being president for me would be being president when i am not ready. you do not want to be the dog who catches a garbage truck and cannot figure out what to do once you get there. in 2016 and was ready. and i wanted to be president. but so did 16 other people in my party. and it came down to one person who has the chance to be elected on tuesday. charlie: and do you want to be attorney general? chris: i do not necessarily want to be anything. unless i am helpful to him. charlie: do you think comey should have come forward? chris: he was my boss. he was my colleague. there is no one in publicly -- life with public integrity. i believe what jim thought. i believe what jim thought was that if people knew that they had these additional emails -- charlie: even though they don't

know, even if he did not know what was in them. chris: they would have accused him of covering it up. he would have been accused of covering it up especially given his earlier decision not to recommend execution to mrs. clinton. and i think that for the integrity of jim comey and the integrity of the fbi, they would let the congress know. this is the atmosphere you are talking about. we live in an adversarial atmosphere in american politics. my case with bridge gate is a perfect example. before anyone knew whether i did anything wrong, i was guilty. and mrs. clinton is a victim of the same culture and mr. trump has been a victim of the same culture. certain instances that people talk about with him, this is a bad bad thing for our country. ,and i think jim comey reacted to that same atmosphere and said , i do not want to be accused of covering something up, so i will let it out. charlie: they were put forward by people associating with you

, and that is why this is so damming of the culture. chris: not of the culture, charlie, because then you are indicting all the other people who worked for me, who were incredibly good people. charlie: just the bad apples. of any collection of people these are bad apples? , chris: i cannot imagine that in your career that you have not hired someone who in retrospect you look back and said and said , the stakes are different when i hired someone then you do. everyone of us has made mistakes. here is my mistake. i trusted people who were unworthy of my trust. and when a governor trust someone, it has much broader impact. and i will always regret that. i will always regret that. charlie: do you understand how you did it and why? chris: i think it just, you know, you make a lot of hires and all of a sudden you do not , get to know people as well as you might want to. that is part of the job. you cannot possibly get to know everyone that well. but in the end, these two people that i hired let me down.

and let the people of new jersey down. here is what did not happen. the governor of new jersey, the guy you are looking at, has an eye to the people of the state. the governor did not know anything about it. i said the same thing from beginning to end. charlie: now you have it in the newspapers. and began asking. chris: and confronted my staff in december. bridget kelly sat in the room and said nothing, then lied to my chief of staff, and back to the office and read emails. is that the conduct of someone telling the truth? phone, i turned over my email account. oath for hours of under testimony. if you think for any minute i had engaged in wrongful conduct, i would not have been charged? i was not because i did nothing

wrong. it is maddening to sit here is a good person who has tried very hard, not perfect but tried their best to be subjected to that. i will no longer be a punching bag. think fishmanyou believes about you in terms of bridge gate? chris: i have no way of knowing. we never traveled in the same circles. charlie: is it possible he thinks that somehow some things are true but he does not have the evidence to prove it? chris: i can't imagine that he did because they are not. paul is a fair and reasonable man who i think makes the judgments that he can make based upon the information he has. but i have no idea what he thinks, and i would never put words in his mouth. i used to hate when they would do that when i was u.s. attorney.

i'm not going to do the same thing that i use to get angry about when i was u.s. attorney to the guy who has my job now. i love that office and i love what they do, i'd love that job and i have great respect for it. , charlie: do you think that you are so damaged by the talk about this that it will impede your chances of having a job in washington if donald trump is elected? chris: no. i do not. charlie: you don't think you have suffered that kind of occasional damage? chris: no because i think the truth matters. we have talked about the truth today. i put it in my words. i have quoted the u.s. attorney , and i have quoted what has gone on and what went on in the trial, what happened in the courtroom. what actually happened. what was actually said. i am proud that seven people went in there and contradicted bridget kelly and told the truth about what it was like to work for me. and i'm proud of the fact i have people who have worked for me now, some of them 14 years. if this was some type of atmosphere of fear and intimidation, people do not stay with you that long. charlie: but if david or bridget

kelly would walk in today and see you what would you say to , them? chris: why? why? charlie: why did you do it? chris: yeah. why did you do it? because i don't think i know why they did it. charlie: you believe he was the transceiver -- conceiver of the whole thing? chris: i think he said he was. charlie: because you did not endorse him? chris: that is why i would ask why. i'm not sure i believe that, it makes no sense. it makes no sense. 566 mayors in new jersey, fort lee, it is not newark, trenton, camden patterson. ,is a small democrat town in the

most populous county. who in their right mind would think that causing traffic in the most populous county in the state 60 days before an election would be something that a guy on the ballot would want to have done for them? it is ridiculous. charlie: but you are a political operative. it is what he said he said to baroni wesaid to mr. , have a constituency of one, who was the one? you were the one guy they wanted to please. they had one constituent. chris: let's say two things. they failed if that is what they , intended to do. they failed miserably. but secondly, remember what deborah said when she was in the courtroom. she said that constituency of one theory, and this was david wildstein's boss. she said it was a fiction a , wildstein special, a fiction. and it was a fiction in david's mind. and i do not know what motivated

david or not. i don't know david. i don't know him hardly at all. and the fact that he says he had constituency of one, we will say this, charlie even the , government in the trial admitted that david is a serial liar. their own witness. the he criticized baroni. in cross-examination. they said how could you possibly , believe david wildsteni? this is the governoment's witness. -- the government about their own witness. i don't know if he is capable of telling the truth. charlie: when i walk into this house, you said to me i have , been waiting three years to do this, to have a chance to tell my story. i could not do it because of the trial. how else are you going to take this crusade to make sure this need that you feel to clear your

name, you do feel that? chris: i have done that. i am with charlie rose. everyone will watch this. i am not going to make this my life's cause. this is not important enough. charlie: there one time you have had to set the record straight. chris: that is why i came to you. and the fact is, now i am going to go back to doing my job. i could be governor of the state for the next 13 months. i have a lot more to do. i will go out the same way i came in loud. , loud and tough and making changes. charlie: this thing really damaged you. chris: of course it did. you get pounded for three years. but i have also been at 75% job of rule in the state as a republican. in a democratic state that barack obama had won by 700,000 votes. and i, -- barack obama got a smaller percentage of the vote

in 2012 than i got in 2015. -- 2013. so i wildly popular in the state am and wildly unpopular. it is about the consequence, and it is about the relentless pounding that i have taken and not been able to answer. charlie: the irony of this is it is caused by people who work for you. chris: yeah, it stinks. stinks, charlie. believe me i'm not happy about , this. that is why i fired them. charlie: you said for bill or bridget? chris: sure. i do not want to see anyone go to jail. but you know what? you have to be held responsible for what you do. charlie: i assume you mean hillary clinton as well. chris: i do not want to see anyone go to jail. charlie: you are a prosecutor. chris: who deserved it. but i never reveled in it. i never relished it. you know what, charlie? when i hired a new assistant u.s. attorney, before i swore

them in, i ask them to do one thing. i have the seal of the department of justice and i said read that seal for me. what does it say? they said, department of justice. i said it does not say , department of prosecution. it says department of justice. our job is not to prosecute. our job is to make sure justice happens. charlie: and you believe in bridge gate, justice was done. chris: i believe in the jury system. and if a jury -- charlie: why can't you say i believe justice is done? chris: because i think it is an even more important answer than that. it is not just justice. let's talk about what happened. 12 regular citizens from all walks of life got in a box and spent seven weeks of their lives every day listening to evidence and then they voted unanimously , for guilt for these two people. i believe in that system.

i believe in it. it is not flawless, but i believe in it. charlie: thank you for your time. chris: thank you. charlie: governor chris christie in new jersey. thank you for joining us. ♪

♪ >> we are shaking off the trump shock. bonds are tumbling. a painful defeat for hillary clinton, but her arrival must begin a chance to lead. deal weekor the becomes harder to reach. and there are wins for asia. tore may be hindrance china's growth and abenomics. >> it