- The New York Times editorial board: “He said Tuesday that New Jersey’s citizens ‘deserve better.’ He is certainly right about that.”
- George Packer: “I was there in Tampa in August, 2012, for Governor Chris Christie’s keynote address at the Republican National Convention, and from the first line I knew this guy was trouble.”
- Katha Pollitt: “Maybe if he hadn’t fired all those people, they would have told him that if you have to tell people you’re not a bully, you probably are one.”
- Jonathan Chait: “Anything can happen, but the combination of obstacles appears, at the very least, far greater than most analysts are figuring at the moment, and at the most, completely insurmountable.”
- Margaret Carlson: “The Christie brand is compromised. It’s going to be harder to get away with yelling at teachers or telling stupid people to get the hell off the beach.”
- Patrick Murray: “He can still tout his accomplishments-but not with all of the bravado.”
- Jeffrey Kluger: “Yes, Chris Christie’s a Narcissist”
- Joan Walsh: “New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is a very sad person today. That’s what he told us Thursday, in a two-hour implosion of narcissism, self-pity and even a little bullying, although he also reassured us, ‘I am not a bully.'”
- Dana Milbank: “Even in disgrace, the New Jersey governor-and the nominal front-runner for the 2016 GOP nomination-managed to turn his nationally televised news conference into a forum on the virtues of his favorite subject: himself.”
- Bruce Springsteen: “You got Wall Street masters stuck cheek to cheek with blue collar truckers and man I really gotta take a leak, but I can’t. I’m stuck in Governor Chris Christie’s Fort Lee New Jersey traffic jam.”
- Ella, a kindergartener: “He’s not a teenager?”
