Rachel Maddow: Bridge scandal marks the end of Chris Christie's presidential ambitions
On Wednesday night, the "Rachel Maddow Show" delved back into a story that it was among the first to report, the New Jersey bridge debacle involving Gov. Chris Christie (R) and his attempt to take punitive action against one Democratic mayor.
The town of Ft. Lee, New Jersey is home to the George Washington Bridge, one of the busiest bridges in the country. Thousands of commuters stream into New York City each day via the GW Bridge.
Last September, a week of epic traffic jams snarled traffic over the bridge, leaving people stranded in their cars for hours. The closing of toll booths on the bridge was in fact a political action taken by Christie's administration as retribution when Ft. Lee's Democratic mayor declined to endorse Christie's re-election bid.
The "Maddow Show" reported on this story weeks ago, but now emails are coming to light which reveal that Christie's closest aides handed down the orders to tie up traffic, even as Christie himself maintains that his aides misled him.
"Traffic jams are not news," Maddow said. "Traffic jams caused by poorly organized 'traffic studies' are not even really big news stories. But if the state of New Jersey is being run in such a way that control of interstate assets is being manipulated on purpose to punish specific towns and even specific individuals for political reasons, then that really is news."
"That is public corruption," she said, and it's why, no matter how much he wants to be, "Chris Christie will never be president."