he said this is how you function as an effective leader, these are the shortcomings of the president, these are the shortcomings of republicans in congress. very difficult to see a scenario where chris christie can deliver that lecture in the way lecture in the way in the past that undermines his effectiveness i think going forward as a candidate. >> i think it's over for him, steve. steve schmidt. thank you for joining us. >> good to see you, lawrence. now a live edition of the "chris hayes show" is up next. . good evening. once again from new york, i'm chris hayes. it was a very busy weekend. the governor thought one press conference thought the scandal would go away, he is sorely mistaken. today huge news out of trenton, the subpoena power on the scandal, those e-mails everyone

has read. >> that subpoena power is expected to fall out tomorrow. it will be renewed and expanded. they announced they will be forming two separate committees to investigate the lane closures both with subpoena power. >> our concern is that there was apparently a very massive abuse of power and an attempt to conceal an abuse of power. >> new jersey assemblyman john wisne wisnewski. briget "time for traffic trouble" kelly. new jersey congressman revealed a federal investigation looking into the misuse of sandy funds, that's a story we have been following here for a while. we will bring you that later in the show. it may be worse for christie, politically, is that the story of the traffic jam and the e-mails and the unfolding

scandal dominated all of the sunday shows. of course, for republicans to grasp at straws to defend their guy. >> the amount of attention paid this week to chris christie makes the coverage of benghazi at the same the coverage of the irs pale in significance. >> how could president obama not know about the irs targeting right wing groups. >> he stood there nor 111 minutes in an open die lock with the press. only if barak obama and hillary clinton would give us 111 seconds of that would we find out some things we want to find out about obamacare, benghazi the irs. >> any amateur can point at irs, benghazi t. best defense the real pro defense came from fox news brent humid, his defense that christie may be too much man for america to handle. >> i have to say that in this sort of femenized atmosphere in which we exist today, guys who are masculine and muscular like

that in their private conduct and old fashioned tough guys runs some risks. if you act like an old fashioned guy's guy, are you in constant danger of slipping out saying something that will make you look like a sexist or thuggish or whatever. this guy is very much an old fashioned maclin, muscular guy and there are political risks associated with that. >> joining me now, my colleague steve kornacki, the host of "up" and also new jersey state assemblyman gordon johnson joins us. he represents ft. lee. assemblymen, i'm begin with you. how much in doubt was the extension of the subpoena power. it seems as recently as a week, a few days ago, it wasn't necessarily a given this was going to happen in the next laejs legislative session. >> once we have determined and learned that this action had initiated out of the governor's office or at least appears to be out of the governor's office, we knew that we had to expand the

subpoena powers and form a special committee and take it out of the transportation committee. >> so bridget kelly seems to be one of the first targets of the new subpoena. so everyone can contract all this, deputy chief of staff, she was not the target of the original subpoenas. her e-mails, the time for traffic problems in ft. lee, because a subpoena of david wildstein, he replies, got it. now these committees will go after bridget kelly. >> right. a couple things are key there. first of all, the fact that this scandal worked its way into the governor's office, officially through the david wildstein e-mails and text message, tells you that david wildstein is not on the back channels on the christie team. there is an article bridget kelly remaining loyal a week later. >> throw that headline up there. i like this, aide fired by

christie is called loyal team player, not rogue operative. >> the key here to me is one thing wildstein is not behind the scenes on team christie. they were totally blindsided by the fact that he had e-mails linked to their office. the second thing is he's putting little clues in documents that were released and are raising all sorts of questions. so, you know, for instance, the biggest one at least is he suggests there was a meeting between the governor and between david samson, who is the chairman of the port authority. a meeting took place between the two of them. he suggests a week before the famous time for traffic, there are all sorts of people in the governor's office will be subpoenaed. the question of the hour is david samson at some point going to be subpoenaed by this hearing, by this committee and what i am hearing is there is an enormous amount of pressure. this is not just republicans. this is pressure from the political establish. in new jersey and trenton not to

have this committee subpoenaed. david samson because of his role in new jersey politics. >> let's give a little context here. david samson is not some deputy chief of staff. he's not someone who is a staffer for a local politician. david samson is an absolute r absolute pillar of the new jersey establishment. he is a mock up. >> he is a pillar of the new jersey political establishment. when you talk about politics in some states, the democrats and republicans, it's the 14 party is the money. this is a guy who is a former state attorney general, whose law firm is probably the most politically connected both sides of the aisle law firm in the state. he has an enormous amount of respect. democrat and republican. bill peroni one of the christie appointees referring to him in public refers to him as a general. >> right. >> this is the former attorney general, general samson, the state of new jersey. that's the kind of respect he engenders. >> in fact, david wildstein when the first memo comes from the

new york appointee saying randy foye saying this is ridiculous, scorching. are you lucky no one died. it gets forward by david wildstein to david samson, general, can i call you on this? assemblyman, there is some polling out today about voters in new jersey, how they are processing all this. 51% do not think the governor is honest. 52% do not think christie was personally involved in the decision. are you surprised by those numbers? >> those numbers do not surprise me at all. if you apply common sense to what we have thus far and we don't have that much thus far, but it's obvious to me that this young lady, miss kelly, did not initiate this action. miss kelly who worked in the shadow of the governor and was very close to the inner circle. so i find it very hard to believe that this young lady, miss kelly, would initiate action and the governor not know

what was going on. >> are you worried at all about the risk of the perception of this changing insofar as you now got two different subpoenaed committees with subpoena power? it is clear to me new jersey democrats who have lived for five years in utter fear of chris christie are just kind of gleeful now at the idea they can go back on the offensive. do you worry at all the public sees this as a vendetta? >> you know something, i don't feel we feel it's the time for glee or retribution from the democratic party. we are here to provide public service to the people we represent. using a public structure, a bridge to extract some type of retribution on the people who are using it to get to work, every day working people who are stuck in a four-hour traffic jam has to be investigated. i personally want to know where this came from, where this idea came from, who knew what and

when? and it's taken us back, it looks to me, it seems to me it's taken us back to the governor's office. >> steve the next step in this is david sam zorn, budget kelly, michael dworniak, those are three of the names. there is about a second tributary of this. was there retaliation happening to other mayors? right. we got a few candidates, steve philip, seems like the most obvious, can selling meetings on the day he rejects an endorsement of chris christie. the mayor of hoboken was also profiled recently and that looks kind of more remarkable to me. bake amy, this town was absolutely destroyed by sandy. if you applied for $100 million, he gets less than a million if i'm not mistaken, her reporter basically, look, i thought this was normal politics or he's taking care of his guys on the shore. now i'm not so sure. >> i think you will find, that will be a major theme of reporting coming out independent

next few weeks. of of it is out there already t. democratic mayor of the town of harrison, jersey, right outside of newark, gets big money from improvements in the community t. pack the commuter rail station in harrison. he quoted this week, would you regret endorsing chris christie? he said, i'd still endorse him again if i had to choice to. i think that will be one thing of the major reporting that comes out now. what are the towns of the mayors, in general, that endorse chris christie. let's look at the towns when they didn't endorse him, what happened there. >> that will be one place this story goes. >> assemblymen, what are you hoping to find out in the next round. what do you think the time table is now for subpoenas, production of documents and possible compelled testimony from some of the people at issue here. >> you know, i can't answer that at this time because senior wisnewski, the chairman of the special investigative committee hasn't really put together a

team yet. we need to sit down and work out a strategy and a plan, so i'm not exactly sure if i give you a time table, but i will say to you, that we are going to stay on this thing until we find out all the facts and get to the truth and get to the bottom of this. >> it is hard for me, steve to imagine. if bridget kelly put into an e-mail, time for traffic problems in ft. lee, that a subpoena production of documents from her e-mail account, it's just a little hard for me to think there is not something. >> if are you in the governor's office, you haven't talked about other names here, regina gia, she was forwarded last september that pat memo that said you are breaking state and federal laws here. she is a part of this documents from bill beroni's subpoena records, if you subpoena her records, what will you turn up? >> she's the incoming chief of staff. she's not someone on the periphery. >> so close to christie. charles mckenna, his chief council, what do you turn up?

how many new names show up? when these subpoenas start flying, the "x factor" in all this, however, i say is the u.s. attorney. >> yes. >> the u.s. attorney steps in and decides this is a case i'm going to take on. it has the potential to quiet down and shut down water happening this trenton. it raises the question, this was suggested by david wildstein's attorney last week when he appeared before that committee and refused to answer questions, that suggest the possibility of did they cut a deal? does the u.s. attorney staff cut a deal? what does he have? >> thank you. steve kornacki is going to stick around because we never let him leave the building ever, ever. all right. we here all if have something in common with senator rand paul. we both thought something seemed a little off about those stronger than the storm ads that were running in new jersey. >> people running for office put their mug all over these ads while they're in the middle of a political campaign in new jersey 25 million was spent on ads that

included somebody running for political office. you think there might be a conflict of interest there? >> is somebody running for political office the greatest passive/aggressive statement ever? coming up, who else thinks there may be a conflict of interest there. ♪ [ laughs ] whoo! ♪ oh! nice! great! [ laughs ] a shot like that calls for a postgame celebration. [ male announcer ] share what you love with who you love. kellogg's frosted flakes. they're gr-r-eat! i've got a big date, but my sinuses are acting up.

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another case opened up against chris christie.

frank paul pallone says in part recent reports led me to believe the state irresponsibly misallocated funding. i respectfully request you review around investigate. today hud's inspector general will, indeed, look into whether chris christie used federal funds to help produce sandy tourism ads that improperly featured christie and his family rather than going with a firm offering a cheaper alternative but would have kept him and his family away from the cameras. allegations of christie's misuse of funds in general have been hiding in plain sight some time now. we have covered extensably on the show. take a look at the chris christie sandy record the day after he won re-election. >> big news, big election results across the country. >> a big win for christie in new

jersey. a push for his presidential prospects. >> republicans are crawling about the chris christie landslide in new jersey. >> governor christie, wow. >> he prepares to be the front runner for the 2016. >> was that a campaign speech? >> that was an announcement speech. >> chris christie is running on the theme i can do it. >> chris christie emerged from last night's election as the front runner from the 2016 republican nomination. he got there thanks, in no small part to hurricane sandy. but don't take our word for it. >> my pledge to you tonight is i will govern with the spirit of sandy [ applause ] >> reporter: the spirit of sandy that christie evoked so many times last night is one thing, but the facts of sandy recovery are something else entirely. new jersey received billions of dollars in federal aid to rebuild and 1.8 billion of that came from the u.s. department of housing and urban development to

get people back in their homes. to get that money, christie promised 60% of the funds would be reserved for low to moderate income households. right now, it appears chris christie is breaking that promise. of course, we don't know for sure. >> fair share housing center and advocacy group for affordable housing says they're as frustrating. they sued the state for the administration's failure to present the most bake documents on why many of families are rebuilding after sandy. >> reporter: because the christie administration released no information how the federal money is being spent. what we do know came out of a lawsuit that alleged the christie administration was improperly withholding data on the fun him response to that suit? christie's government released information on where a fraction of it all went. >> that money only 36.9% went to the people christie promised he'd give it to. the whereabouts of the rest of

the billions of dollars remains a total mystery. we do, however, know where an additional $25 million in sandy aid went to a very well produced ad campaign, a whopping $4.7 million paid for this one commercial. [ music playing ] ♪ we're stronger than the storm [ music playing ] >> reporter: it turns out, the firm hired to run the campaign had been chosen over an advertising firm that had bid 40% less but did not propose using the governor's family in the spots. >> the jersey shore is opened. >> we're stronger than the storm. >> you bet we are. >> reporter: right now, there are thousands of people out of their homes one year after the storm hit. >> reporter: did you think when this all happened, a year later you'd be in this position? >> never. we honestly figured maybe six months and we'd have a home. >> reporter: mortgage defaults are up over the past year in the

sandy-hit areas. 75% of new jersey residents affected be i the storm say people like them have been largely forgotten in recovery efforts. many people in new jersey sandy was the worst thing that ever happened to them. chris christie, it could be the best. >> you see a mission is different than a job a. mission is something that is sacred. it's a sacred trust that was thrust upon me and you. >> reporter:ies christie is not just benefiting politically from a natural disaster. she benefiting politically from a natural disaster made more disastrous by his own administration's failure to prepare. in his first term, he defunded after sandy when reporters filed public records requests, they found out new york city's transit plans for severe storms is detailed in five binders each three inches thing. new jersey's transit plan three-and-a-half pages with

everything blacked out. >> my pledge to you tonight is i will govern with the spirit of sandy [ applause ] >> two things to tell you about, since that piece first ran, a lawsuit filed with the fair share housing center shook loose a small number of documents detailing shocking racial dissparities of who gets sandy money and who doesn't. on average, black residents were denied sandy relief 36.5% of the time. latinos 19% of the time, white residents 13.5% of the time. this is a story we will continue to cover this week. also. the marketing firm that produced the christie stronger than the storm released a statement welcoming the inspector general's report and disputing the total cost of the ad. joining me now is congressman frank pallone who initiated this to precipitate the report. congressman, are you happy that the ig will look into it?

>> it's important that they do. i am concerned about misconduct here. as you said, i represent the northern part of the jersey shore. many people still have not got money for recovery efforts. whether with homeowners or businesses and there is no question that at least $2 million in extra money was used to give to the high bidder for this ad campaign that said that they were going to use the governor and his family in the ads and that, you know, that extra $2 million could be used for the recovery efforts. so i asked the ig to look into it. they now are saying they are going to do a full investigation and i'm glad that they will. >> i should say for the record, mw that marketing firm is strongly contending the notion. they say they came in at a lower overall bid. they are confident it will come out in the ig report. we will await that. the other thing, this politics. i want to play you an ad from california advertising that state's tourism industry. take a look.

[ music playing ] >> people think life in california is all fun and games. >> it's really serious business. >> we have board meeting. >> board meetings. >> lots of board meetings. >> we run with the big dogs. >> everything is a huge production. >> we run life. >> we are a bunch of pencil pushers. >> we work with real characters. >> hey, it's a dirty job. >> someone's got to do it. >> so if california seems like your kind of work. >> we got one question. >> when can you start? visit california.com.au. >> no harm, no foul the governor of california throws himself in tourism ads. what is the difference there? >> the difference here is this is federal money that was supposed to be used for storm relief, few will. you might compare it to new york, governor cuomo wasn't is it. instead they used billy crystal and other celebrities. this is taxpayer dollars coming from the federal government, which is very hard to obtain and frankly which even now as you said a lot of the homeowners and

the businesses still haven't gotten their money for the rebuild. so i think there is a big difference. it also was during the course of the gubernatorial campaign, you know, when he was running ads, campaign ads, that were very similar in the sense that they were saying that he should be reelected because of what he did with the sandy efforts. so they kind of dove tailed with his campaign efforts. >> you know, it's always struck me when looking at the chris christie record as pertaining hurricane sandy. it's been a triumph of atmospherics over substance. the atmospherics of him meeting with president obama a few days before the election, him being out there in the shore, him attending to people that had been so devastated, him talking about the smirt spirit of sandy, it has been powerful, it seems to me, persistent questions of how the massive amount of federal aid money has been alocated in your state frankly, i don't feel we have a very good

accounting right now. >> i don't think we do. i think the main point i'm trying to make here is that the inspector general obviously feels there may have been some sort of misconduct. so i am pleased they are moving forward with this. i would also point out that it is definitely true that the firm that was chosen was getting at least $2 million more, you know, in terms of what they were actually receiving to produce the ads and their fee as opposed to the one that was not chosen. it was the little bidder. so there is no question here that the firm that was chosen was the one that agreed to run the ads with him and his family and i think that running those ads in the context of a political campaign paid for with federal dollars that was a block grant that could have been used for homeowners and others, there is a serious question here. >> the folks that you do represent. you say you represent a part of the northern shore in your district. do they feel like they've

recovered? do they feel, we have interviewed folks on this show who are still living in trailers. we've talked to lots of people who still can't get any money out of hud, out of, through the state process. do the people you represent feel like they've been made whole? >> no, i mean, look, a lot of people have received funding and there has been a lot of rebuilding. but we're a long way off and many people, you know, say they were promised funds that they haven't received and my office, on a daily basis, deals with people that, you know, are still running lou the process and haven't received any funding. so we have a long way to go and you know any notion that, you know, the rebuilding effort is complete is simply not true. so i do appreciate, chris, that you are bringing attention to this, not just the ad campaign, but the fact that there is a long way to go to rebuild the shore. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> coming up, chris christie answered a lot of questions last week.

but he didn't always have the answers. >> i was a class president and athlete. i don't know what david was doing during that pietrangela. >> as luck would have it, we know what david was doing in high school a. who's who refresher course on the amazing cast of characters in chris christie's bridgegate next. . ♪ ♪ stacy's mom has got it goin' on ♪ ♪ stacy's mom has got it goin' on ♪ ♪ stacy's mom has got it goin' on ♪ [ male announcer ] the beautifully practical and practically beautiful cadillac srx.

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number of people involved in the chris christie bridge scandal

keeps going on. so here's our refresher shore from last friday on new jersey's house of cards. >> there are some delays out there at the george walk bridge. first we'll take a live look at if span where you can see no cars are coming our way. >> reporter: with each day, the number of people involved in new jersey's house of cards gets bigger. to fully understand the drama, you better know who the characters are. first the main actor, david wildstein, he's been pretty quiet lately. >> arespectfully assert my right to remain silent. >> reporter: wildstein is the christie appointee who responded got it when asked to do a track jam. they are old high school chums. now christie wants distance. >> i was the athlete and class

president. i don't know what david was doing at that time. >> he served as a mayor of new jersey before he was 30. then wildstein went underground founding an anonymous political blog politicker mj. the super seeker byline was wally edge. he once said the worst part of politics is the policies. in 2010, christie gave wildstein the job at the port tort. it paid $150,000 but had no job description. wildstein was christie's eyes and ears in the port authority. hoo tes author of the two most infamous e-mails. they are the children of voters and it will be a tough november for this little serbian. >> david wildstein deserves an ass kicking. okay. sorry, there i said it. >> reporter: david wildstein resigned december 6th. next up, bill baroni. he spent several years in the assembly. then he met the governor. he served as a stand-in for

incumbent jon corzine during debate preparation. he was appointed to the port authority for a job that paid $289,687 a year. several days before he resigned, he testified the lane closures were a part of a traffic study. >> he testified there was a traffic study. there still may have been a track study. >> reporter: good news for baroni. he was not under oath. he resigned. next bill stepien. he was the campaign manager. one of his inner circles, known as the governor's enforcer. he was the nominee of new jersey's republican party, an ad advisor of the republican governors association. he was caught e-mailing back and forth with wildstein about the traffic jam calling the mayor of ft. lee an idiot. >> i lost confidence in his judgment. >> reporter: next up, bridget kelly, christie's secretary of

staff, she's the one who wrote time for traffic problems. >> those day, time for traffic if ft. lee. >> reporter: she was fired as well. unlike david wildstein, bill baroni, bill stepien and bridget kelly who lost their jobs over there david samson, whose name also appears in the e-mails is still standing. he previously sern served as attorney general of new jersey, council on christie's first gubernatorial campaign. christie appointed him to the port authority board in 2010. he wrote he is helping us retaliate against officials during the fight over the close yish. so far, he has not been fired. if chris christie wants to survive this scandal, he needs david samson not to be involved in any of this in anyway. and the documents we got today don't make that look likely. this entire cast of characters

will be making appearances when we discuss bridgegate more after this. yeah. everybody knows that. did you know there is an oldest trick in the book?

>> zblrt. >> all right. so remember the biggest mystery around the bridgegate scandal, who of chris christie's cronies were trying to screw over and why? the original theory is it was retribution for the ft. lee mayor for refusing to endorse christie. here's the thing, if there is one item that chris christie and the ft. lee mayor both agree on is that it was never a big push to give the endorsement in the first place and all the intrigue and coverup and political damage does seem a little much for a democratic mayor of 35,000 n. response to this story by colleague rachel maddow. she was involved in a brutal conflict over the state supreme

court. now, a man who knows new jersey politics well as well as anyone knows anything, our own in-house jerseyologist steve kornacki has a new idea of what may have been at the center of all of this. it involves a billion dollars and a subplot right out of the wire. he will explain ahead. when does your work end? does it end after you've expanded your business? after your company's gone public? and the capital's been invested?

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accomplished on a county level, a state level. i'm proud of our delegation and our district. i tell you, we have done phenomenal things in ft. lee. >> that is the tragedy here. we're in the middle of a renaissance, a billion dollar redevelopment. we are arguably if most aggressive community in the state of new jersey run by this idiot. >> that was ft. lee mayor sokolich defending his record against the slurs and ethnically slander of chris christie operatives that refer to him as se serbian during this interview, he said that, i sat up in my chair $1 billion in development. i figured the mayor was overstating things. you see, ft. lee is a town of 35,000 people and how many towns of 35,000 people have $1 billion developments? the answer is none very many. so after that interview, i sat in my office, i went to google, typed in billion dollar

development in ft. lee. the headline fort lee approves second half of $1 billion development. it's called the hudson lights t. plan is to loom large on the jersey side of the hudson river just right near the george washington bridge. the site calls 157,000 retail space, 477 residential units and 157 room hotel. it is being developed in a state that jersey has been trying to develop for almost 50 years. it's at the center of the motive for the bridgestate scandal. joining me is steve kornacki and so, you went in on this on your weekend show, steve this parcel of land, why do you think it bears some connection to this? >> yeah, i wouldn't call, i don't feel that i put a theory

out there. i can oons ter y question. where i think it does take you is we have been looking at this and saying, this town of 35,000 people, supposedly about an endorsement. >> that was never asked before. >> yeah. so what, this level of interest from such high level gubernatorial staffers, people this closely related to chris christie, in his level of interest, his level of risk, it's not proportionate to a mayor for a town of 35,000 people. if you can attach a $1 billion redevelopment project with enormous political and economic significance to that mayor, that changes the game a little bit. because this is an administration that has taken a very active role in the christie administration in developing issues. it is aware of much much smaller. >> yes. >> it has its hand in much, much smaller development issues. this project sits at the foot of the george walk bridge, some of

the most coveted land in new jersey, oh, by the way the value of that land and the value of what is being developed there to the investor, any perspective tenant is wage related to having the access to the george walk bridge, cut off that access. reduce that access. you mess with this project. you could proeshl potentially kill this project. >> you have the funding that has just come lou for this project. >> the funding did not come through the funding was there was a delay somewhere in the funding. the funding came through on the first business day after the lanes reopened. >> okay. i want to show this graphic, because i actually think it has been incredibly difficult to conceptualize the area. here's the normal traffic flow. oh, we come in from ft. lee. this is what it was pushed down to during those four days. you, obviously, get a sense of what this is the washington post, what a problem that would be if it was shut down.

this piece of land, matthew, this has a kind of an amazing story in history. right? >> oh, yeah. >> and steve kind of, you know, laid it out, there is a history there. it goes back a few decades. you know, i believe there was a book written about somebody that, you know. >> you got a mayor -- >> who offered a $500,000 bribe to develop this 30 years ago. said no and had to basically flee town. >> i believe he wore a wire. to the point, it is a coveted piece of real estate. it makes a lot of sense, there is a lot of money tied up in here. which is why when these questions came out, we don't have. it's all today, we were making calls about this. we don't have pointed questions to ask. it certainly opens up a whole other debate. more to the point, yeah, why would they put so much pressure on a small town mayor? you know, you can kind of buy

that story. but it's also, the idea, though, it would be something much larger than that, then those, it warrants further investigation. >> i think the other thing, i find interesting is one of the things, if you read between the lines in a bunp of the e-mails. . it's clear they didn't want this to be a four-day thing. it actually looks like it was a four-day thing, randy foye found out about it and flipped out and shut it down. it looks like possibly they were going to sit back and go how is it going ft. lee? >> they call themselves outraged, they were pushing back the closure of the lanes. i think what is fascinating steve has gone into great detail about the actual development, the billion dollar development, it gets to the scale of the punishment being inflicted. it gets to the level of virfrole. we don't have the answer to why, we don't know what happens on august 12th?

what is the project for the galvanizing event? what was the galvanizing triggering event that happened in the woke before aupth 13th that gets miss kelly to say, mort the scale of the punishment gets bigger, the more we add development to it the more fascinating that particular question will be. >> from someone who covered politics and development in chicago and other places, what i think is so fascinated about the development in the traffic, if you look at the graphic, if we can show it again, the one line or three lines of toll lanes. the things that separate those are seven orange cones that cost about 55 cents each probably when ordered in bulk, right? where the seven cones go determine the value of a parcel of land currently valued in its full development form of

billions of dollars. you don't have to tear anything down or blow anything up. the reason this is such a braille yant idea in its own sick and twisted way is that all they today do was move a few cones. i can see why, for whatever the motivation, they thought they were going to get away with it. >> and there are a few other elements here that i think are worth pointing out. one is that when chris christie made jokes about moving those cones in his december 2 press conference, the next thing was a line about ft. lee had this special lane and -- >> and he said, that kind of gets me sauced. >> right. and one of the top guys at the port authority made the same claim before the assembly committee. they are selling this as oh, ft. lee only gets these roads. that's a totally bogus line. >> hold that thought and explain why that is bogus, right after this quick break. cialis is also the only daily ed tablet approved to treat symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines,

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i don't know why ft. lee needs three lanes. i have sat in that lane before i was governor. and the fact that one town has three lanes dedicated to it. that kind of gets me sauced. >> we're back with steve -- i don't even know what that means. steve, i cut you off. you were taking issue with the characterization that it's one town. >> i think this is so telling, because anyone who knows traffic patterns, knows you don't need the proof that i live in ft. lee to use the lanes. most people using the lanes are not from ft. lee. 25% of people that go through the lanes -- 25% of the people that live there come across the

bridge. that is super officially appealing. but there is something you don't want people to know. keet is, the next line he used, after he gets sauced,cy have asked david sampson to look into whether that should be reduced. and what david while steen has told us through the records that have come out, he strongly suggested there was a meeting between governor christie and port authority -- >> related that question. >> directly related to the closure of the lanes one week before the e-mail was sent out. so you have chris christie giving a bogus reason why they don't need the access lanes. and david strongly hinting that chris christie and sampson met a week before that e-mail went out. >> tomorrow chris christie will give the state of the state. at 3:00. what will he do? can't do the two hour drop before the press conference, right? >> we imagine he today rewrite the speech. i think his biggest challenge right now in tomorrow's state of

state address is that he has to probably, you know, appeal to his national audience, right? if he is going to be taking on his role in the rga, going across the country, i think he has to show republican donors that he, you know, look folks, i took a hit here. but i'm ready to get back on and then, you know, earn their trust. you know, just, i think that's going to be his biggest issue in the forefront, considering the fact that, if this spirals, this is -- it says serious implications for his 2016 run which we assume he is gearing up for. >> the advantage he has, is that he can script the questions and then be the storm -- >> every time christie opens his mouth, he has to be careful not to say anything that will upset one of the four people that have it in their power, at any moment they want, to blow up his whole narrative. at any moment, they could say, you know what, ms. kelly could

say -- >> i like the fact you're using new york times style. miss kelly. >> at my moment, they could say be that's not true. miss kelly could say, no, i didn't do this and could just start talking. he has it carefully script what he is saying to make sure it doesn't anger one of them. >> and has the script to make sure he is not caught in an outright lie for which there is a paper trail. that, i think, has to be a concern given the fact you have subpoenas now, coming down most likely, when two new committees -- >> we can talk about what should he do, what shouldn't he do. >> it is out of his control. >> totally out of his control. when subpoenas start flying, we don't know what will come out. we learned that last week. >> the idea that he was the front-runner, which came about because of the nature of his victory, do you think there will be any further look at sandy stuff. because to me, that's kind of what i have been really obsessed

with. here is this guy who cruised to victory on the horrible thing that happened to his state, based on the atmosphere of how he reacted in the moment, which were that moment laudible, and not based on a pretty sterling record substantively for what sandy looks like -- >> that's a fair point. sandy would come up no matter wh what. we know with the announcement today, that there is a federal audit into a small portion of some of that spending. we could assume the sandy recovery would come under the microscope. but voters, you know, in new jersey, like the way he handled the storm. right off the bat. so there is weight in that. but sandy itself, the recovery, would come under the microscope. and there are still folks still reeling from that disaster in the state. i think that was going to be an issue no matter what. now the timing of congressman malone's announcement says to me

that that is t is more -- >> snowballing. >> right. >> and that is it, you can keep pulling threads. thank you all. that is it for a special 11:00 live edition of "all in." well see you back here in 21 hours at 8:00 eastern. good night. good evening, happy monday. thanks to you at home for joining us. the largest city in the state of new jersey is newark, new jersey. until recently, of course, the mayor of newark, new jersey, was a man you might have heard of. cory booker. cory booker now is no longer the mayor of newark because he's a united states senator now. one of the highest profile democrats in the country. there are not that many people who have jumped from mayor to u.s. senator, but cory booker did that. and the city he jumped from is new jersey's largest. the second largest city in new jersey is jersey city. and jersey city, too, is starting to become known forts