Port Monmouth Town Hall, 2-20-2014. (Transcript Below)

Debbie Fortier: I'm just Debbie from Brick and I just want to go home.

Governor Christie: Debbie, let me tell you -- and Debbie, I'm Chris the Governor and I want you to go home. Okay?

Debbie Fortier: Then let me go.

Governor Christie: But the fact is that if the checkbook was purely at my disposal, and I could review your papers personally, and not have the federal government involved, you'd probably be home already. But I don't have the checkbook, and I can't make these decisions by myself. All I can continue—

Debbie Fortier: Then someone out there has to be listening.

Governor Christie: Well, listen, we're fighting and arguing every day, every day. Over issues like this. And hundreds of thousands of people have already been helped. Now I understand that this is like when we have a power outage after a storm. And I get on the radio and say to everybody: well, good news today, 75,000 more families have had their power restored. And you're sitting listening on a transistor radio in a cold dark house and go: quite frankly, Governor, I don't give a damn because my power's still off. In the same way that I could tell you that hundreds of thousands of people have been helped already by these programs, and are back home, and do have their lives back to normal, when you're still not back in your home, when you're still experiencing those frustrations, that's cold comfort to you...It's important to have this dialogue back and forth and I need to be honest with you. I mean, I could come in here and just blow sunshine at you and say don't worry, after this meeting we'll get it all fixed for you. And then leave. But I'm not going to do that. Because that wouldn't be telling you the truth. And my job here is to tell you the truth, whether the truth is happy or unhappy and I think for lots of folks—hundreds of thousands of folks, this has worked extraordinarily really well. But it's not going to be done until I take care of everybody that we can possibly take care of with the resources that we get from the federal government. And all I can promise is that we'll try to get people to explain this situation to you so you can make an informative decision and that you need to understand that I understand what you're going through and I'm doing the very best we can to try to help you.

Debbie Fortier: I appreciate that.

Governor Christie: So good luck with everything, Debbie. I thank you.

Debbie Fortier: Thank you so much.

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