After Secret Surgery Revealed, Christie Faces Friendly Barbs from the Press - East Idaho News
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After Secret Surgery Revealed, Christie Faces Friendly Barbs from the Press

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150894034?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1367985661305BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GettyImages(HAMILTON, N.J.) — Just hours after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faced the press and questions about his newly revealed Lap-Band surgery, he endured some friendly barbs from the New Jersey press corps, as well as throwing a few back himself.

Kevin McArdle, a local reporter and the M.C. at the New Jersey Legislative Correspondents’ Club, poked fun at the news as well as the governor’s well0documented love of Bruce Springsteen.

“I guess Springsteen’s not the band closest to the governor’s heart,” McArdle said to laughs, just hours after the news was first revealed in the New York Post Tuesday morning.

The night consisted of song and dance performances from members of the New Jersey press corps, all joking at the expense of the governor and the many other characters in New Jersey politics, including the woman running against him in the gubernatorial election this year: state Sen. Barbara Buono.

The big performance of the night was the final song before Christie took the stage. Titled “No Pollo for Mio,” it was a last-minute addition, McArdle said, due to Tuesday’s news.

“No more stromboli, no more rigatoni,” Filippo Alongi sang in an operetta style. “It’s not a whim. There’s less of him. Our governor.”

Christie then took the stage introduced as the “comic-in-chief” and quipped, “So what’s new?”

He made fun of the press corps that just hours before were drilling him about his surgery, saying, “If these people were only as good reporters as they are singers.”

Christie responded to the roast, applauding the group for coming up with the song about Tuesday’s news so quickly.

“In 14 hours they come up with a song about my weight. A topic that’s never come up before in New Jersey,” Christie said with a smile.

He also mentioned another of the songs, which teased Christie about his possible White House aspirations with a reporter crooning, “I’m stuck here in Trenton with you … it was cool to wish I was VP … Here I am, stuck in Trenton here with you,” sung to tune of “Stuck in the Middle With You.”

“I intend to be here a year from now having the same type of fun and having the same type of people around me,” Christie said. “Not stuck in Trenton — I love Trenton, who wouldn’t love Trenton?”

The true star of the night was a piece of clothing that also made its name on Saturday Night Live. Yes, it’s Christie’s famous navy blue fleece, worn throughout Superstorm Sandy and the immediate aftermath by the governor.

It was the central focus of the governor’s video, titled “Maybe there is something to this fleece.” In the video the fleece goes missing and he employs stars like Alec Baldwin and Jon Bon Jovi to find it. Earlier, a reporter even shimmied in a fleece look-alike singing, “Will you still wear me in the White House?”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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