Here are five prominent Republican politicians (and a future NBA Hall of Famer) standing by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who apologized for his staffers’ ploy to shut down lanes of traffic on the George Washington Bridge for political purposes and who fired his deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly for her role in the scandal. (RELATED: 3 Republicans who are not thrilled with Chris Christie)
1. South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who is depending on Republican Governors Association (RGA) chairman Christie in her 2014 re-election campaign:
“I’ve watched my friend Gov. Christie work through a difficult situation today. He did the right thing in taking responsibility in a tough situation. That’s the kind of leadership that earned him the huge level of trust he has in New Jersey.”
2. Home Depot founder Kenneth Langone, a billionaire Christie backer whose influence on Wall Street is key to Christie’s 2016 fundraising prospects:
“As I hoped and expected, Governor Christie was forthright, sincere, seriously embarrassed and unequivocally apologetic.”
3. Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus:
“Governor Christie did the right thing and demonstrated what leaders do when actions of the team are unacceptable and wrong. I wish President Obama would be as transparent and open as Governor Christie.”
4. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose fiscally conservative and socially moderate policies gave him an early boost but ultimately hurt him in the 2008 Republican primary, and to whom Christie as a national party prospect is most often compared:
“Politically stupid things, political pranks that turn bad, all that other stuff, every administration — don’t tell me this doesn’t happen in the Obama administration, the Clinton administration, the Bush administration.”
“The President runs away from press conferences like this… He acted like a chief executive… He handled it about as well as he could have handled it.”
5. Former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour (2004-2012), who served as Republican National Committee chairman during the 1994 Republican Revolution:
“First of all, he stepped up to the plate and took responsibility. The American people are dying for that after five years of President Obama always saying it’s someone else’s fault… He stepped up to the plate and said what a great Democratic president once said: ‘The buck stops here. I take responsibility.’ He didn’t say, like Secretary Clinton, ‘What difference does it make?’”
“That won’t hurt Chris Christie with Republicans if you have the Holder Justice Department chasing him around because that’s what Republicans have come to expect with this administration. They always say it’s somebody else’s fault. They never investigate their own, but they always investigate the opposition.”
“Yet the left continues to talk about this as vengeance and bullying and getting even. Getting even for what? The liberal media elite continues to treat this like the Lincoln assassination.”
6. Shaquille O’Neal, NBA legend and non-Republican Christie endorser:
“I believe him… When you have a lot of employees, it’s kind of very difficult to police everybody. Some leaders let people police themselves and some of them micromanage and try to police everybody. One thing I know about Christie: He’s not a micromanager.”
“He’s a good man. He’s a fair man… It’s all going to be fixed, and I know an incident like this will never happen again.”