Gov. Chris Christie said Wednesday he has rejected several jobs with the incoming Trump administration – partly because his wife will not move to Washington, D.C.
In an interview on the "Boomer and Carton" show on CBS radio's WFAN, the New Jersey Republican said President-elect Donald Trump did not dangle anything "exciting enough for me to leave the governorship."
"And [it also is] my family," he added. "Mary Pat made really clear she wasn't coming to D.C. if I went. The fact is, I was really honest with [Trump]. I just said, 'I don't want to leave the governorship and leave my family for that.'"
Trump did not give him grief about it, he said.
"He was like, 'I get it,'" Christie said. "The truth of the matter is, the president-elect and I have been friends for 15 years. We'll be friends long after he leaves the White House.
"I wanted to be president. I ran for president, and I lost. And I think it's very hard to leave after that unless it's something you feel really called to do, and I didn’t."
Christie did not reveal what job other than the commander-in-chief would have lured him to the nation's capital, but said there were several jobs pitched to him.
"He's the kind of guy, when you're his friend, he'll say to you, 'Come on, we'll have fun,'" Christie said. "My experience with him has been he tries to make it sound so great, [and] it is like, 'How can I say no to that?'"
Trump might not give up so easy, however; he told The Wall Street Journal "at some point we're going to do something with Chris" in his administration.