Chris Christie denies agreeing with Cuomo on 98 percent of the issues

Holly Bailey
·National Correspondent

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is denying a report that he told a union official he agrees with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on 98 percent of the issues.

The Republican governor reportedly made the remark to Larry Bulman, the political director of the United Association of Plumbers, Pipefitters and Steamfitters. Bulman recounted the conversation in an interview with the Glen Falls Chronicle, a weekly paper in upstate New York.

Bulman quoted Christie as saying, "I'm not much different than Andrew Cuomo. I probably agree with him on 98 percent of the issues."

But in a press conference on Tuesday, Christie denied making the statement about his Democratic counterpart.

“I don’t ever remember saying anything like ‘I agree with him 98 percent of the time,’ because I don’t,” Christie told reporters. “I’m sure I didn’t say that. But what I do remember saying, and what I do believe, is that Gov. Cuomo and I have a lot of the same kind of values, in terms of the way we were raised. And that was the conversation I was having.”

Perhaps in a sign of how worried Christie’s office is about fallout among Republicans over the alleged comment, aides posted video of the governor’s response to the reports at Tuesday's press conference on YouTube.