the new jersey attorney general, governor chris christie plans to have his own former chief of staff, who was there throughout this entire thing. the confirmation hearing is set for tuesday. he is expected to testify under oath. the chair of the state senate committee said yesterday if the now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." have a great night. chris christie kept talking and talking and talking in his press conference today as if he didn't want it to be over because once the press conference ended, his political career would end with it. >> i know you guys are obsessed with this. i'm not. it's not that big a deal. >> lane closure controversy on the george washington bridge. >> the george washington bridge. >> controversial lane closures.

>> newly obtained e-mails. >> members of christie's staff -- >> a top aide to christie. >> how will chris christie respond? >> i come out here today to apologize to the people of new jersey. >> chris christie's response to allegations of political retribution vournding the closing of the nation's busiest bridge. >> i had no, ma'am knowledge or involvement. >> he's fired a top aide. >> i've terminated bridget's employment. >> he said she lied to me. there's no evidence that he ordered the lane closings in question. i was stunned. i was blind sided yesterday morning. >> a whole slew of things are suddenly in motion here. >> a port authority official has been testifying now. >> i respectfully assert my right to remain silent. >> commerce committee has already launched its own inquiry. >> i had no knowledge or involvement in its plan organize its execution. >> this story is going to continue for weeks and maybe months ahead.

chris christie talked and talked and talked some more today, but he did not talk himself out of trouble, except in the eyes of some easily fooled political pundits, and he most definitely did not save the sinking ship that once was his presidential campaign. chris christie apologized to the people of new jersey. he did not specifically apologize to the children who were stuck in traffic in their school buses in ft. lee, new jersey, thanks to the actions of chris christie's staff. maybe even with chris christie's own approval and maybe not. and he did not say that he felt sorry for the children trapped in those school buses, but he clearly does feel sorry, mostly for himself. >> i'm sad. i'm sad. that's the predominant emotion i feel right now. is sadness.

sadness that i was betrayed by a member of my staff, sadness that i had people who i entrusted with important jobs who acted completely inappropriately. sad that that's led the people of new jersey to have less confidence in the people that i've selected. >> to have less confidence in the people that i've selected? how about less confidence in the person who selected those people who wrote those vile e-mails to each other, explaining that there was no reason to feel sorry for the kids on those school buses because they were not children of christie voters. >> i am heart broken that someone who i permitted to be in that circle of trust for the last five years betrayed me. i would have never come out here four or five weeks ago and made a joke about these lane closures

if i ever had an inkling that anyone on my staff would have been so stupid but to be involved and then so deceitful as to not disclose the information of their involvement to me when directly asked by their superior. >> chris christie is heart broken, but not for the children on the school buses, not for the 91-year-old woman who was rate waiting if for an ambulance that was stuck in traffic. traffic created by christie's team, maybe with christie's approval, and maybe not. >> this morning i terminated the employment of bridget kelly effective immediate. i terminated her employment because she lied to me. >> not because of what she did to those people who were stuck in traffic.

not because of the danger she created to the people of new jersey and new york whose lives can sometimes depend on how quickly they can cross the george washington bridge to get to a hospital, for example. new yorkers used that bridge on september 11, 2001 to flee new york city when it was under attack in the most desperate of circumstances. they used that bridge. they believed to save their lives. they relied on the george washington bridge on 9/11 to save their lives. chris christie's trusted bridget kelly and her co-conspirators did not know that there would not be another terrorist attack in new york or new jersey on the days that they decided to create a traffic jam on the george washington bridge. they did not know that there would not be a terrorist attack at the george washington bridge, which homeland security officials have long believed is exactly the kind of target that terrorists are looking for.

one of america's iconic bridges, one of the world's iconic bridges. and the busiest bridge in the world. those conspirators had no idea what emergencies might develop on or near the bridge that emergency personnel would not be able to respond to because of the traffic jam that they decided to create for political reasons. in the 24 hours chris christie used to think about this, before he was capable of speaking a single public word about it, he decided to do only two things -- took him 24 hours to decide to do only two things. one, fire his deputy chief of staff, bridget kelly and two, fire his campaign manager. >> i was disturbed by the tone and behavior and attitude, callous indifference that was

displayed in the e-mails by my former campaign manager stepien and it made my lose my confidence in him. >> really? he received this e-mail when the conspiracy was under way in september. a negative newspaper story came out about the traffic jam and david wildstein ordered the traffic slowdown himself was afraid that he might be fired on the spot that day by chris christie, the day that the negative news story about the traffic jam came out. and bill stepien told wildstein not to worry, it's fine. the mayor is an idiot, though.

win some, lose some. wildstein calmed down and replied, idemty boxes ready to take to work today just in case. it will be a tough november for this little serbian. the little serbian that wildstein was referring to in his e-mail is the mayor of of ft. lee, new jersey. he's actually croatian. bill stepien was clearly involved in this conspiracy, and all that did, all his clear written involvement in those e-mails did for chris christie was make chris christie lose confidence in his campaign manager's judgment. up till now, it was chris christie's judgment that bill stepien should be the chairman of the republican party of new jersey and also that he should be on the payroll of the republican governor's association. that was chris christie's best judgment about bill stepien

until today. >> i've instructed bill stepien to not place his name in nomination for state party chairman, and he will not be considered for state party chairman. and i've instructed him to withdraw his consultancy with the republican governor associations. if i cannot trust someone's judgment, i cannot ask others to do so. >> and so now that the people of new jersey know that they can in the trust chris christie's judgment about who to hire, what are they to do? now that the people of new jersey know that they cannot trust chris christie's judgment about who he trusts, what are the people of new jersey to do? chris christie has decided that he no longer trusts his deputy chief of staff bridget kelly so he fired her. but he decided he does trust his

chief of staff kevin o'dowd and apparently he trusts him because chris christie has not yet read an e-mail from kevin o'dowd that proves he's lied to him. if you haven't proven on paper that you've lied to chris christie then he believes you. but what if he has lied to chris christie verbally, leaving no electronic record of his lie. what if kevin o'dowd was completely in on the conspiracy that the deputy chief of staff was involved in to block traffic at the george washington bridge. we now know we can't trust chris christie's judgment about who's telling the truth in his office. and chris christie's judgment of his chief of staff, kevin o'dowd is not just that he's completely innocent of any involvement in

this case, but that kevin o'dowd should actually now become one of the prosecutors with jurisdiction over this case. that's right. chris christie wants to appoint kevin o'dowd to be the attorney general of new jersey. one of the smart questions christie was asked today was about kevin o'dowd. >> could this have an impact on kevin o'dowd's nomination to be attorney general since he was chief of staff and would probably be involved in setting the tone? >> absolutely not. kevin's confirmation will go forward on tuesday. and i expect, you know, he'll be vigorously questioned like any candidate for attorney general should be. and i expect that he'll get swift and certain confirmation because he deserves it. >> and so, we are about to find out. just how irresponsible the new

jersey state senate can be. next week if they move to confirm one of the suspects involved in this mystery to become one of the prosecutors in this case. one of the big unanswered questions of the day is exactly what did chris christie do yesterday. he said he did not speak to the two people he got rid of today, bridget kelly and bill stepien because he thought it could be perceived as inappropriate interference with ongoing investigations into those people. he was not asked if he knows if anyone else spoke to bridget kelly yesterday. did chris christie meet with or talk to a private defense attorney general yesterday? one who would have attorney-client bridge with chris christie as the government lawyers around him do snot did

chris christie get private legal advice about how to protect himself in what is now a criminal investigation? those are some of the many unasked questions today. chris christie tried to portray his action against bridget kelly as swift. >> i found this out at 8:50 yesterday morning. by 9:00 this morning, bridget kelly was fired. by 7:00 yesterday evening, bill stepien was asked to leave my organization. that's pretty swift action for a day's work. >> what is swift about that? if he found out what bridget kelly at 8:50 yesterday morning. why wasn't she fired at 8:51 yesterday morning. he said he didn't have to talk to bridget kelly to decide to fire her. he just had to read the e-mail. they never got the full story out of the christie about what

he had actually been doing for the last mysterious 24 hours, except feeling sorry for himself. in the press conference, chris christie did something that he would tell you is a classic indicator that a witness is not telling the truth. he changed his story. but reporters didn't seem to notice. here is version one. >> i brought my senior staff together i think about four weeks ago tomorrow and i put to all of them one simple challenge. if there is any information that you know is about the decision to close these lanes in ft. lee, you have one hour to tell either my chief of staff kevin o'dowd or my chief council charlie mckenna.

>> that was him speaking in his carefully prepared opening statement in which he very specifically says that he did not ask his staff to tell him if they had any information. he gave them one big hour to tell his chief of staff or his chief council. >> over the course of the next hour, kevin and charlie interviewed each member of my senior staff, came back and reported to me that they all reported that there was no information other than what we already knew that had been testified to by senator baron i regarding this incident. >> got that? here's version two. >> four weeks ago and when i had them all in that office and said if any of you have this information about this that i don't know, you need to tell me, kevin or charlie now.

see that? christie forgot his script there. now there's three people you have to tell. this is the time, this bit about you have one hour to tell kevin or charlie became you need to tell me, kevin or charlie now. not in one hour. only one of those versions can be true. and there are important differences between the two. did chris christie really sit in that room and look into the eyes of bridget kelly and say to her and everyone in that room, look into their eyes and say if any of you have any information about this that i don't know, you need to tell me now. the second time he told that story, that's how he told it. and that is, of course, what chris christie should have done with every person on his senior staff. and he should have closed in on them one-on-one and used his own judgment as a former prosecutor, his own judgment as an evaluator of truth to try to get that truth out of his staff

one-on-one, eye to eye. and he sounds like he did it in the second version. he pretends he did it in the second version. in the first version he doesn't say he did that at all. but it sound like the way to do it, right? even chris christie thinks it's a good idea to do that. now. >> i have and will continue to, started yesterday, to once again now have personal one-on-one discussions myself with the remaining members of my senior staff to determine in if there's any other information that i do not know and need to know in order to take appropriate action. >> so chris christie is doing now, now what he should have done at least four weeks ago, maybe months ago. chris christie is only now today trying to find out what his staff knew and when they knew it. and he's doing that after admitting today that he is a terrible judge of character. that his judgment about who on

his staff is telling him the truth and had been horribly wrong and that he is now trying to use that dysfunctional judgment about who the truth tellers are and who liars are while he himself is wallowing in self-pity about his presidential campaign being trapped in a traffic jam. coming up, what just happened to chris christie's presidential campaign? then "the rewrite" tonight, christie's talk till they drop press conference followed the model offered in an episode of "the west wing" that i wrote. such a press conference required a press corps unskilled at asking prosecutorial questions and a politician willing to talk at length about irrelevant things like, say, maybe his feelings. today, everything went according to the script. asional constipation,

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>> republicans who want to run for president are already being asked about chris christie. >> i've been in traffic before that. i know how angry i am when i'm in traffic and i'm always wondering, who did this to me? >> next on chris christie's political future if he has one. and and editor of the newspaper that broke the story of the smoking gun e-mails. [ male announcer ] the new new york is open. open to innovation.

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i am enormously flattered that folks would talk about me in i my party as someone who they think could be a candidate for president. but i am absolutely in nowhere near beginning that consideration process. i haven't even been sworn in for my second term yet. i've got work to do here and that's my focus. my focus is on the people of new jersey and the job that they gave me. and so all those considerations are, you know, the kind of hysteria that goes around this, because everybody is -- in that world gets preoccupied with that job. i am not preoccupied with that job. >> joining me now is steve schmidt, a senior adviser and david corn, washington bureau chief for mother jones and msnbc political analyst. david, is chris christie really, truly no longer preoccupied with the presidency because today he realizes he cannot win it? >> i think he might be a little less preoccupied because he has other things more pressing at the moment.

the interesting thing here, we don't know how this will turn out. if no new information comes out after today, i think he has a chance of putting this behind him. but i think that's a big if. but the script was, and steve can tell me if i have this right here, is after winning this major re-election victory last november chris christie well, you know, still being governor 9:00 to 5:00 some days was moving on to the national stage. he was taking over the republican governor's association, he was campaigning for candidates throughout 2014 and just really getting a larger, wider profile on the national stage to, you know, run for president. but yet because of this, he's pulled back in to the swamp of new jersey politics and possible scandal. so he can't really sort of get that launch that the last election was supposed to give him on to the national stage. he's going to have to deal a lot with what's going on in new jersey and what's going on with these investigations knocking at

his backdoor. >> let's listen to something chris christie said today about his management style. >> there's this kind of reputation out there of me being a micromanager. i'm not. i think if you talk to my staff what they would tell you is that i delegate enormous authority to my staff. and enormous authority to my cabinet. >> i delegate enormous authority to my staff. steve, that's exactly what republican audiences want to hear and republican presidential primary debates, isn't it? >> no, look, i think as the news conference went on he opened himself up to some trouble. look, though, i do agree with david, if, in fact, there is no new information, if, in fact, chris christie was not involved, and i take him for his word at it, that he had no knowledge of these e-mails before this morning, he took responsibility, he apologized. he held people who were close to him accountable, which is

something very much missing from the political calculus when we see these scandals unfold in washington, d.c. and i don't think it will derail his presidential ambitions. i think law, lawrence, that presidential candidates often have nine lives over the course of the process. he certainly has used up a number of them. he's made his path more difficult, or his deputy chief of staff has made his path more difficult. this was an outrageous abuse of power. it's something he'll be dealing with for some time. and lastly, and i think it's an important point, this whole question of whether chris christie is a bully or not, this is now something, if he loses it in new hampshire or in iowa where people are going to have a predisposition to believe that, in fact, he is as opposed to being a tough fighter for the people's interests, and that's a problem for him. so he's starting out at the beginning of his second term in a bit of a hole here. he has some work to do.

but if there's no new information, if he was entirely candid, and i believe he was candid today, and i certainly hope that i'm right about that, i think he survives this. if he wasn't then his political career is over. >> i'm going to bet you're not proven right about him being candid today. i understand your willingness to take his word for it. i don't think anyone else around here does. you have to believe, if you want to follow chris christie's story and look at this thing as something that he's going to -- that's going to get behind him, you have to believe that his deputy chief of staff is absolutely as high as this story goes. it does not go one office higher than her that, i find, impossible to believe. >> i think steve is being very generous tonight. i don't begrudge him that graciousness, but i still -- you know, i do think it's very unusual in a situation like this to find somebody, not just one person.

you know, she called someone -- or e-mailed someone at the port authority who knew exactly what she was talking about. time to get on this traffic lee in ft. lee. he said got it. he didn't say what the heck you were talking about. and then there was a whole attempt at a cover-up, you know, with this traffic study stonewall. and chris christie, this former federal prosecutor seemed to ask no real questions about that. that, you know, that cover-up was blown out of the water inside of 12 hours. and yet, you know, chris christie wasn't saying hey, come in my office, you guys aren't telling the truth. i want to get to the bottom of this. but one other point besides this, i think with the story shows that chris christie can be vulnerable on other fronts no uh. there's a lot that goes on in state politic the, particularly new jersey state politic, but chris christie has been able to sort of rise above that. and now anything that comes up it's going to get a lot of, you know, a lot of scrutiny that he may have trouble with. >> steve, there are a lot of things in this press conference

today that you could cut 30 second ads on, or certainly talking points for debates. the idea that christie says i delegate all this stuff to my staff. and then christie admitting that his judgment about who he hires is actually quite terrible. and his own judgment about when his staff that he's delegated everything to is telling him the truth or lying to him is also equally terrible. there's a lot of very bad admissions for an executive in that press conference, don't you think? >> look, there's no question that if he is a candidate for president that this will be an issue that he deals with through the entire duration of the republican primary process. if he becomes the nominee, on into the general election. and the other thing that will happen as a result of this, lawrence, is that every instance of his staff being heavy handed with anyone, whether it's with other governors, whether it's been with members of the new jersey legislature, with

government agencies, every instance is going to now become public. and so the narrative here will begin to turn and the speculation will begin to focus on the extent of the culture problem around chris christie with the people that he has given enormous authority to and that he's delegated enormous trust to. so now how he managers to deal with that aspect of thf story i think is a chapter unwritten. but it's certainly not over yet. >> go ahead, david. quickly. >> he's on very thin ice now. i mean, he may skate by, if nothing comes by on this, but i think steve is right. it's not just people looking for, you know, other examples. i think the new jersey media, which has been pretty easy on him, is now going to be looking at other episodes. so he really, you know, can't afford one more factoid about this case, about any other example that's similar to this. >> listen, bridget kelly can destroy the guy's career with

three words -- the governor knew. that's all she has to say. what next in the investigation? and what crimes may have been committed? and in "the rewrite" what christie was trying to do in his talk till they drop press conference today. [ male announcer ] imagine this cute blob is metamucil. and this park is the inside of your body. see, the special psyllium fiber in metamucil actually gels.

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in the spotlight tonight, the

christie gang takes the fifth. >> i do. thank you you may be seated. >> are you currently employed? >> no. >> and most recently, were you employed? >> on the advice of my council, i respectfully assert my right to remain silent under the new jersey and united states constitution. >> who in the governor's office knew about the plan to close the lanes or divert the lanes? who was involved? what did they know? when did they know it? and just as equally, who was involved, what did they know, when did they know it, when the effort was made to craft an explanation. >> if the attorney generals general for new jersey, new york and the united states were all to agree to grant mr. wildstein community, i think you would find yourself in a far different position with respect to information he could provide. >> if you were to get a subpoena for whatever reason, what would

you do? >> i'm not going to speculate on that. >> joining me now is attorney ari melber and john stan deans, the chief investigative reporter for wnbc new york. there's a lot of buzz among national pundits today about, well, you know, there's no real crime here. i mean, it's just a traffic thing. in fact, you've looked into some statutes, federal statute controlling interstate highways and so forth. it seems there is possible criminal liability in this situation. >> very early to tell. a lot of federal officials who we spoke with and defense lawyers that practice in the federal bar here in new york say it's a bit of a stretch but there are some statutes they're looking at. using an interstate facility to carry out unlawful activity. they need to look at more. but they say that's one possibility. more likely they say just given on the facts they know now,

possible federal civil charges for the cost and expenses in all of this. and pass it on to a state level for prosecution because there you have tougher laws about official misconduct and also conspiracy to disrupt, harass, menace. so that there are state penalties. but this is very early on. we do know that the u.s. attorney in new jersey is taking this very seriously. they put out a statement today. the fbi in new jersey, we also have the u.s. attorney's office in new york and the fbi in new york. remember, the port authorities of new york and new jersey, their offices here in new york. there could have been -- the george washington bridge crosses both states. so there is some question about right now, new jersey has the lead. but certainly several places, very interested in taking a very hard look at what went on here. >> you talk about interstate commerce. the george washington bridge is an interstate roadway. that bridge is interstate. and ari, it's very clear in those e-mails that the christie gang had no idea that they were interfering with interstate commerce or anything that could possibly involve the fbi's

interest. >> well, i think what they thought is that they were on closed circuit and to the degree that anyone in new jersey was going to look into it, it was going to be their buddies. an important thing that governor christie failed to do today was address the fact that he has put his chief of staff up for attorney general of the state of new jersey. you were speaking on some of this in your opening about the fact that he's only tuned into this when it affected him personally and said now he's angry. well, the problems that affected his state have been around for some time. now, when you look to the legal issues here, i think the clearest ones, the clearest cases to be made are probably on state law, which we know will be enforced by folks that are otentially closer to him. but if there is any obstruction of justice issues at any point with the investigations already ongoing in the state, if there were any issues around documentation, changing documents, backdating the traffic study or plans to do that. you could get into forgery

charge, official misconduct. and this would be a more stretch, but if there's an abuse of government resources. there's a lot to look at. lastly on the if ed ral piece, if you do get a full blown federal investigation, you can ask scooter libby how that works often after the fact, even misleading a federal officer gets you a very serious charge. >> look, we saw the first member of the christie operation go under oath today and the first thing he does is take the fifth amendment. there are obviously going to be many more invitations for you should oath testimonies otherwise known as subpoenas thrown at all of these people and we may see many more invocations of the fifth amendment, or possibly someone does get immunity. this guy was publicly begging for it today and starts telling them everything. >> that's another question. will somebody turn and have information that perhaps points higher up.

this is classic how federal prosecutors in the fbi operates. they start with the lore fish and try to work their way up. but again, chris christie and the top staff say look, we did not know that this was happening and we were lieds to by members of our own staff. what i just can't understand tonight is, we keep hearing this traffic study that became a vendetta or a vendetta that became a traffic study. how is it something that happened back in september, we still don't know whether there was a legitimate traffic study under way and the nature about it? that i find -- >> i think we know. >> i think to echo that, chris christie is nothing if not a very raw, emotional speaker, lawrence. and he was doing that. but you know when he didn't sound emotional? in the point you just cited. he sounded to me to my ears very lawyerly whenever the traffic study kept up. and he kept up this line he clearly hearsed, whether it was a study that grew into a vendetta or vice versa. that's weird when we have e-mails that show it was designed for payback. that's already known. and it raises the question

whether chris christie knows something else about more materials out there about this traffic study because he didn't sound normal. he didn't sound credible at all on that. >> except the mayor of ft. lee forgave him and says he believes him. >> publicly after his first request being refused. coming up, governor christie's talk till their drop game plan has been used by other politicians before him, including at least one fictional politician. that's in "the rewrite." in my world, wall isn't a street.

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[ female announcer ] call an allstate agent and get a quote now. diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues... with three strains of good bacteria. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'. ♪ [ ding ] i sense you've overpacked, your stomach. try pepto to-go. it's pepto-bismol that fits in your pocket. relief can be yours, but your peanuts... are mine. ♪ >> that's the most important issue facing this country in this campaign. now who said what in nuclear power 25 years ago. or did one of us use too strong a woshd in a debate. the real decision the american people are going to have to make is who do they want as their next commander-in-chief. all right, next question.

anyone? ellen? >> nope. thank you. thank you very much. >> damn this guy is good. >> son of a bitch. >> ahh, the great ron silver. we all miss him. in "the rewrite" tonight. the talk till they drop press conference. the first time i saw this done, it was performed by geraldine ferraro when she was running for vice president and her husband's business dealings came into serious question. she took questions about that for nearly two hours. the model was faced that told wroters, i'm here to answer every question. the idea is to take it all the way to the point where the reporters have no more questions.

they actually get bored. talk until the reporters drop. that was clearly chris christie's strategy today and it worked. some reporters did get bored and made the mistake of publicly admitting that on twitter. there wasn't one boring second of that press conference today if you were listening to every word. if you were catching the spots where christie changed his story, and if you were desperately waiting for important unasked questions to be asked. some of which were never asked. as i mentioned earlier, the strategy of doing a talk till they drop press conference relies on reporters asking relatively easy questions, and it relies on reporters getting easily bored. and the political media has demonstrated over and over again that they are entirely reliable on both of those points. as most of them were today. reporters are terrible prosecutors. reporters ask politicians how

they feel. >> as i said earlier, i think in the answer to your question, you know, i don't know what the stages of grief in exact order, but i know anger gets there at some point. i sure isle have that too. but the fact is right now i'm sad. >> prosecutors never ask witnesses how they feel. they ask them what they did. they ask them exactly who they talked to and what they said. prosecutors confront witnesses with their own inconsistent statements. but reporters in press conferences cannot easily do that. today, christie said this -- >> of course we'll work cooperatively with the investigations. and then over an hour later, he was allowed to say this without objection from any reporter. >> if were you to get a subpoena for whatever reason, what would you do? >> i'm not going to speculate on that. next. >> if christie does not comply with any and every subpoena in this case, he is not cooperating with investigator. he's not trying to help them find the truth.

his answer to if you get a subpoena what would you do should be of course, i will cooperate with all investigators in every way including complying with any and all subpoenas. that's what his answer should have been. but he got away with refusing to answer that very important question because it came toward the end of a talk till they drop press conference and reporters were already tweeting about how bored they were. and about how much they wanted this to be over and how they didn't think there were any more good questions to ask. just because they couldn't think of any. and the bored ones, and most of the nonbored ones apparently had no idea how important that answer was. the talk till they drop press conference works not so much because the politicians answers are true and complete and satisfied, but mostly because the press can always be counted on to eventually drop. they can be counted on to get bored. they can be counted on to add to

their own boredom by asking irrelevant questions about feelings. and so chris christie managed to talk his way past his inquiz tors today, but the questions will keep coming and he will never, never talk his way out of trouble on this one. hey guys! sorry we're late. did you run into traffic? no, just had to stop by the house to grab a few things. you stopped by the house? uh-huh. yea. alright, whenever you get your stuff, run upstairs, get cleaned up for dinner. you leave the house in good shape? yea. yea, of course. ♪ [ sportscaster talking on tv ] last-second field go-- yea, sure ya did. [ male announcer ] introducing at&t digital life. personalized home security and automation. get professionally monitored security for just $29.99 a month. with limited availability in select markets. ♪ is your tv powered by coal? natural gas?

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i want some... [ woman ] hop on over! [ marge ] fiber the fun way, from phillips'. >> i am who i am. but i am not a bully. >> you revealed that your paper revealed the smoking guns of these e-mails. i want to read something that you wrote last month. >> there is no bridgegate. christie will not be harmed by this nationally. in your op-ed for tomorrow's papers, you say i have been slow on the uptake, refusing to believe the governor's office would involve themselves in something so petty and down right stupid. i was wrong but my portion was small compared to christie's. >> did you think they wouldn't think they would get involved because you know them? >> i think i have a sense of who the governor is based on my own

back and forth with him we've argued and we've agreed. i think i get a different kind of interaction with a governor that a reporter in a news conference. as an editorial page newspaper. there's no logical reason for what happened with the bridge. even if you want to be nasty, vindictive, shutting down a bridge is not going to tick off people against the mayor of the town. it's going to take off people against whoever controls the bridge. and if the governor of new jersey and the governor of new york control the bridge, i don't think, you know, there's any logic into it. so i think you have to first take that leap of faith and say that there's any reasoning in what went on. because there was none. >> let's go to this situation with kevin o'dowd which i find extraordinary. there was exactly one body separating governor christie from the deputy chief of staff, ms. kelly and that is kevin o'dowd the chief of staff. the governor wants to become the attorney general of new jersey

by appointment. is it conceivable that the democrats in the senate and new jersey will say yes, let's take this guy o'dowd from suspect status in the middle of this mystery and make him one of the prosecutors with jurisdiction over this case. >> i wouldn't say he's suspect. he's a person above kelly. but i would say stepien is important. >> campaign manager. >> they were very close in terms of mentor, relationships. so it is conceivable if you want to -- >> stepien was close with ms. kelly? >> i believe that's one of the reasons why she was promoted up is that he trusted her. there are three deputy chiefs of staff and i don't know how close these three are with o'dowd. i think he's going to have hard, hard questions.

i would i a sum that the folks in the senate, democrats in particular have a sense of who he is before this and everything is up for grabs. i wouldn't say that it's impossible for him to get confirmed. i think he's going to have a really bad day in training. >> only in new jersey. this amazing set of characters and intersections. the governor today, was this what you expected to see from him today? >> sort of. i mean, we called in our editorial today, we wanted kelly fired by this morning. which wasn't quite what we got. we wanted stepien gone. so i think that was clear. i think the apology was good, going to ft. lee is good. all of those thing, if you're scripting it, that's what you would tell somebody to do. we were a little upset he didn't confront kelly. he's a former prosecutor. we would want to hear that this

guy had a really unpleasant conversation with her and we didn't get that. we wanted that. >> and the thing is, you know, to kelly, who told you to do? that's question one. they didn't ask it. we're out of time, sorry. thank you very much for joining us. bridge over troubled waters. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight where governor christie left off today. i want you, the people watching right now and the people involved in this escapade to answer some common sense questions. call them the smell test. did governor christie truly believe that the four days of long traffac