matt arco is with us now. he is a political reporter for -- matt, what is the name of the publication? into it is politicker nj. good to talk to you. what do you think of the news being reported by the "new york times"? >> sure, thanks for having me. it is certainly some impressive news coming out here friday afternoon. we are all kind of gathering what is going on here. but like you folks said, this is -- this could be explosive news here. and of course we to have wait to see what the evidence is. but, you know -- >> well -- >> well, matt, let's walk through what apparently we know now, at least reporting from the "new york times." because if what the "new york times" is reporting bears out it is indeed explosive information. so, david wildstein and let me have you go through the cast of characters here. who is david wildstein? >> so david wildsteen is a former port authority official. he wasn't appointed by governor christie but the number two to one of governor christie port authority appointees, former stat

let's talk about what today's speech means going forward with political commentator ryan lizza and matt arco, state house politicker. gentlemen, thank you for being here. your reaction, you live outside of trenton, what did you think of the speech and addressing the scandal? >> well, look, it's something that he had to add into the speech. just a couple of weeks during his press conference, the two-hour press conference, he said that he wasn't going to be addressing that but i think it's gotten larger. so it's something that he couldn't ignore. and i think the idea of why he addressed it is because now he's -- if he was just talking to new jersey voters, that's one thing. but he has a larger audience. he has this larger audience and he needs to prove, i think, to national republicans that he's somebody that can, you know, handle a controversy like this and pull through. so that's certainly why that was added to the speech now. >> ryan, what do you think of how he addressed that? >> well, he had this phrase in there. >> mistakes were made? >> mistakes were made that i kind of was blown away.

joining us now from matt arco from new jersey. he has been covering the christie controversy.come. >> welcome. thanks for having me. >> what do you make of the latest twist in the story? >> it is coming at a time when we have had a couple of weeks of controversy. and now also this is coming at a time -- so this is just kind of compounding that, and it's becoming right before governor's christie's inaugural. in less than 24 hours, the lieutenant governor and the governor will be sworn in for a second term, and governor christie has its plans for ellis island tomorrow night. so this is really not a good time for the administration. it's another controversy that they are having to address when they are trying to roll out some stuff for their national audience. >> i want to clarify the story i just read. the major of hoboken gets on television on msnbc over the weekend and says she was approached by chris christie lieutenant governor and told to support some sort of real estate deal that the governor was interested in allegedly. and that unless she did that, the city of hoboken wo

for more, i want to bring in matt arco. how big of a deal is this? the u.s. attorney's office issuing subpoenas and the gop state committee. what does this tell you about the state of the investigation? >> i mean, it's moving forward. ever since this whole thing started, and we saw evidence of what was coming out and the e-mail transaction, it was rumored that the u.s. attorneys would get involved and then, bam, it happened today. you have these two organizations tied to chris christie that were hit with federal subpoenas. it's pretty shocking news. i say it's shocking. it's certainly unprecedented in my career covering new jersey politics but certainly people older than me as well. but it was -- you know, we somewhat saw this coming, just the way the investigation was going but it is big news in training. >> bill stepien investigation, he was fired a few weeks ago as the possible person who may have been behind all of this. >> right. he's been with the government for years. democrats in the legislature have made it clear that they have targets on stepien bec

joining me to talk about it, political reporter for "politico," katie glick, matt arco, and ryan lizzanks for being here. ryan, you talked to former new jersey tom kaine. >> it seemed like everyone was up on the stage today. he was the guy that got christie into politics. it starts with this legend, governor kaine. and i asked him, is this spat between you and christie overblown in the press? is it real? he said, no, it's not overblown as well. he said, he tried to take out my son. that was the quote. christie tried to take out kaine's son. >> from the position of power, not from this earth. >> it is still politics. >> so it's clear here, that's all. >> i thought that was interesting, he had a couple of things to say. he also thought on the democratic side that the democrats were in danger of and had a warning for them as s- well. but he was very clear that he has still not gotten over the little spat that he got in when christie tried to take out his son. >> matt, you spoke with the president of the state senate, a democrat who has worked well with governor christie in the past. how a

"the national journal," how chris christie can save his career and we also welcome back ann and matt arco who has been following this story from the beginning and we welcome new jersey assembly majority leader lewis greenwald. general and gentlemen and ladies, welcome. thank you very much. do you think christie had a sister soldier moment? did he go against the normal political grain? >> yeah, in a lot of ways he did. it was a pretty remarkable day, like you said, larry. we have to remember that surviving a political crisis is more about a process than it is a single performance and what we still don't know is, one, whether the people of new jersey and beyond will buy his dee niles of involvement. two, whether anybody else was involved or where this investigation might lead. having covered the state capital before, i find it hard to believe that only two people would know about this. and, three, whether it's a pattern of abuse or whether it's isolated. you know that there's going to be a lot of reporters and democrats and enemies even on the republican side of chris christie who are going

we welcome darryl ishua, senior political reporter for the new jersey star-ledger, matt arco, politicalfor politicker, if i have that right. what do you make of this denial? this is barack obama type stuff. i didn't know about the irs, i didn't know about the websites, you know. this is almost, almost a nondenial denial because it's so vague but he says unacceptable, i didn't know about it. is it going to pass muster? >> it's interesting where it is now. when everything began, he said you know, i sat down with my administration, i sat down with everybody and i said who was involved in this, tell me what you know now, we're told that he let everybody go -- >> when was that? when was that? >> this was weeks ago. this was during the press conferences. he said, you know, i was told by sources that he let everybody leave the room, said come back in half an hour, tell me what you know. apparently no one said anything to him. and now, now this has come out. the news came out today and it is kind of explosive. and as far as his statement today, no, i mean, i think folks still have a lot more qu