Why hasn’t Chris Christie been out campaigning for Donald Trump?

From February's 'Ask the Governor'

Almost immediately after ending his run for the republican nomination for President back in February, Gov. Christie announced he was backing Donald Trump for president, and began showing up at Trump events all over the country.

Christie was roundly criticized by New Jerseyans for focusing on Trump and not the problems and issues of the Garden State.

Over the past month or so, Christie has made several appearances all over Jersey, trumpeting programs and initiatives he’s been supporting, so at a Monday afternoon news conference in Hoboken, Christie was asked why he hasn’t out lately with Trump.

“If he picks up the phone and says, 'Hey, I really need you to come to – fill in the blank,' if there’s any way I can go I’ll go, but he also knows the rules of the game with me, like I got a day job,” Christie said. “We’ve been friends for 14 years. He doesn’t abuse the relationship. So when he really needs me he calls, and if he really needs me I’ll go and help him.”

Christie noted when he does go out and campaign for Trump, everybody in Jersey asks why he's out there when he's got a job to do here. But now that he's staying in Jersey and working on state issues, everybody is asking “'Why isn’t he out there campaigning for Trump? 'Why isn’t he helping him more?' It doesn’t matter. No matter what I do, you folks won’t be satisfied.”

Christie added “It’s somewhat like the Legislature. You know, when I’m here, the Legislature says. 'What the hell is he doing?' And when I’m not here, they say 'Why the hell isn’t he here?'”

The governor said he suspects “I’ll be helping him a lot here in the month of May as he gets ready for the June primary in New Jersey, which for the first time in my lifetime is going to actually mean something.”

If you’re wondering what Christie’s priorities, he said it’s pretty simple.

“If his wife calls I go quickly, if my kids say they need me I go somewhat quickly, depending upon the sound of their voice, and then the Governorship comes after that, and then my help for Donald Trump comes after that,” he said.

As far as whether Christie considers himself a Donald Trump adviser, he said “sometimes Trump will ask questions, and we have conversation, but sometimes I just listen. Sometimes a candidate just needs someone to listen to them, who understands what they’re going through. And I may not have anything to add to if for him, I may just say, 'Yeah, that sucks,' and then, the end of the conversation. He says, 'You’re right, it does,' and then it’s the end of the conversation.”

Christie then said that when he was running for president he had conversations with “a number of folks who had run for president before to get honest feedback about what was going on. It’s hard to do that with someone who hasn’t gone through that before, people who haven’t gone through it think they know what it’s really like, but they don’t.”

The bottom line, said Christie, is that Donald Trump is his friend.

“There are times when he says things to me which I think either he’s directly asking me a question or he’s saying stuff I think warrant a response and some advice, and there’s other times that I know it’s just time for me to shut up and listen. I serve whatever role I can serve to help my friend,” he said.

Christie added, “He and I have never been ones to mince words with each other and I think that’s part of the reason for our friendship being as longstanding as it is over the last 14 years. He’s an interesting character as I’ve always said, and I find him continuing to evolve into being even more interesting.”