In New Hampshire yesterday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie repeated to voters that he did not hug President Obama after Hurricane Sandy.
“Yeah, no, I’ve got to tell you, I can’t disappoint you all enough, I didn’t hug him,” Christie said during a New Hampshire town hall according to Time’s Zeke Miller. And as you all have learned in New Hampshire, I hug everybody. So it was a disappointment probably for him that I didn’t hug him.”
The New Jersey governor has worked for years to dispel the notion that he hugged Obama when the president came to New Jersey – even though conservatives were infuriated that he rhetorically embraced the president when he visited the damage in his state caused by Hurricane Sandy.
In 2013, Christie also denied hugging the president – he shook Obama’s hand after he landed at the airport and Obama put his hand on the governor’s shoulder.
“It was a handshake like you would shake hands with anyone,” he said. “It was a perfectly natural, casual, normal type of greeting between two people. And you know, it’s become legend.”
Christie argued then that people who believed the “hug” legend “conflated my kind remarks about the president with the picture” making it “more of a metaphor than an actuality.”
Other photos online featuring the pair of leaders appearing chummy together, are from Sept. 4, 2011 in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene – a year before the controversy surrounding Hurricane Sandy.
In August of last year, Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren apologized to Christie for reporting that he hugged Obama.
“You know I looked at it last night and I said, that’s no hug and I gotta say I’m sorry about the hug,” she said in an interview with Christie admitting it was a rare apology from a member of the media.