Watch Gov. Chris Christie"s full speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he was "sad" his friend and confidant admitted shaking down United Airlines to reinstate a flight to make it easier for him to reach his vacation home in South Carolina.
David Samson is "my friend and it made me very sad," the Republican told NJ.com on Monday. But Christie would not say whether Samson has tarnished the governor"s legacy, which included serving as New Jersey"s attorney general.
"That"s all I have to say. That"s all I have to say," Christie said as he left the arena in Cleveland where the Republican National Convention is being held.
Samson is the former chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was a mentor to Christie. He admitted he pressured United to reinstate the flight after he removed from a board agenda discussion of a hangar United wanted at Newark Liberty International Airport.
The money-losing flight was ended three days after Samson resigned. United"s CEO resigned after an investigation into that service.
Jamie Fox, a former lobbyist for United who Christie later named the state"s transportation commissioner, was charged by federal prosecutors with soliciting the bribe. Fox"s attorney said he will fight the charge.
United agreed to pay a $2.25 million penalty for its role in the scheme.
Samson was head of the Port Authority when two former allies of the governor were accused of shutting down lanes to the George Washington Bridge as part of a political retribution scheme. Neither Samson nor Christie was charged in that case. A third Christie appointee has pleaded guilty in that case, which is expected to go to trial in September.
Christie denied any wrongdoing and was cleared by a taxpayer-funded legal inquiry. U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said there"s no evidence the governor had anything to do with the bribery scheme Samson pleaded to.
But the bridge scandal in particular put a cloud over Christie"s political future. Democrats then and now have seized on both cases to criticize Christie, who ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and began backing presumptive nominee Donald Trump.
Chris Pine Learned Never to Mix Goldschläger, Beer and Chinese Food
Chris Pine looks absolutely hilarious while rocking an inflatable fat suit alongside Jimmy Fallon during his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday (July 18) in New York City.
The 35-year-old actor and Jimmy played a round of flip cup, talked about working with Jeff Bridges in h**l or High Water, and promoted his latest film in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek Beyond.
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Chris Pine
That same evening, Chris was joined by Idris Elba and Karl Urban at the New York premiere of Star Trek Beyond.
Chris Pine The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
Click inside to watch the rest of Chris appearance on The Tonight Show
Germany: several people injured after man attacks train passengers with an axe
Multiple people were injured after a teenage Afghan refugee went on a slashing spree armed with an axe and knife on a train in southern Germany on Monday night before he was shot to death by police, officials said.
Wuerzburg police said on their Facebook page that three of the victims suffered serious injuries and one was slightly injured. Another 14 people were being treated for shock.
Bavaria"s top security official, state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, told Germany"s ARD television that the attacker had been identified as a 17-year-old Afghan refugee.
Herrmann said initial information was that the suspect came to Germany as an unaccompanied minor and had lived in the Wuerzburg area for some time, initially at a refugee facility in the town of Ochsenfurt and more recently with a foster family.
He said authorities were still investigating the motive of the attack and were looking into reports that the suspect had yelled out "an exclamation" during the rampage.
He was responding to reports that some witnesses had heard the suspect shout "Allahu Akbar" ("G*d Is Great") during the attack.
The train was on its way from the Bavarian town of Treuchtlingen to Wuerzburg, which is about 60 miles northwest of Nuremberg.
Germany last year registered more than 1 million refugees entering the country, including more than 150,000 Afghans, but it was not immediately clear whether the suspect was among them or someone who had been in the country for a longer time.
The rampage came amid heightened security in Europe, days after 84 people were killed when a man who pledged allegiance to ISIS rammed a truck into a crowd in Nice, France after the conclusion of a Bastille Day fireworks show.
Real-life Benghazi heroes open up about "13 Hours" movie
On the opening night of the Republican National Convention, two survivors of the 2012 attacks on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi pushed a favorite talking point among conservatives who have accused the federal government of a sluggish response in Libya: a debunked theory that military personnel were told to stand down."
On three separate occasions, we got told to wait by the chief of base, and we told us to stand down, said John Tiegen, a security contractor working at the CIA compound the night of the attacks who co-wrote 13 Hours with fellow ex-contractor Mark Geist.
Stand down order be damned, we took off and left, we werent waiting no more," he continued.
But multiple fact-checking outlets have found no evidence that such an order was given by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In November 2014, the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee found the CIA properly responded to the Benghazi attacks, debunking residual claims that the CIA delayed its response or missed the opening for a possible rescue mission.
After Sunday"s episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians aired, Kim Kardashian shared a series of Snapchat videos that showed Kanye West on the phone with Taylor Swift six months ago. Everything seemed copacetic as the musicians discussed West"s song, "Famous." Swift even approved the line, "To all my southside n---as that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have s*x." At the time, West told her, "All I give a f--k about is you as a person and as a friend. I want things that make you feel good. I don"t want to do rap that makes people feel bad." Swift said the name-drop was "like a compliment, kind of." What they didn"t appear to discuss, though, was the lyric that followed: "Why? I made that b***h famous (G*d d**n) / I made that b***h famous." (Swift made that clear during her 2016 Grammys speech for Album of the Year.)
West was vilified after the song"s release and Swift"s speech. "I really don"t give a f--k, so I"ll do whatever to protect my husband," Kardashian said in Sunday"s episode. In GQ"s July issue, she stood by her claim that Swift signed off on the line. "She totally knew that that was coming out. She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn"t," she said. "I swear, my husband gets so much s--t for things [when] he really was doing proper protocol and even called to get it approved." A rep for Swift maintains she was never made aware of West"s lyric, "I made that b***h famous."
After the Snapchat videos went viral, #KimExposedTaylorParty trended on Twitter.
Swift shared her side of the story via Instagram Sunday. "Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me "that b***h" in his song? It doesn"t exist because it never happened. You don"t get to control someone"s emotional response to being called "that b***h" in front of the entire world. Of course I wanted to like the song. I wanted to believe Kanye when he told me that I would love the song. I wanted us to have a friendly relationship. He promised to play the song for me, but he never did," she told her fans. "While I wanted to be supportive of Kanye on the phone call, you cannot "approve" a song you haven"t heard. Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination."
Referencing West storming the stage at the MTV VMAs seven years ago, she said, "I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009."
As memes were made, stars took sides in the stars" social media squabble, including Swift"s friend and squad member Selena Gomez. In a series of tweets, the "Kill Em With Kindness" singer told her 44.1 million followers, "There are more important things to talk about...Why can"t people use their voice for something that f--king matters? Truth is last thing we need right now is hate, in any form. This industry is so disappointing yet the most influential smh." The Twitter trolls then turned on Gomez, as #SelenaGomezIsOverParty #GoToSleepSelena trended.
Meanwhile, Demi Lovato and Pharrell Williams liked tweets that were written in support of Kardashian; Williams un-liked the tweet after fans took notice. Zendaya liked two tweets after Kardashian"s Snapchat story took the Internet by storm. One message included two photos of Zendaya and Swift posing with past and present squad members. "My girl zendaya knew better," the caption read. In the second tweet, a Twitter user wrote, "I"m glad zendaya was never really down with that whole Taylor squad s--t." Zendaya later un-liked the tweets. The drama even affected live TV, as Billy Eichner was a guest on Bravo"s Watch What Happens Live when he was asked what he thought of people "trying to take down" Swift. "I think Taylor Swift likes to be talked about and ultimately likes everything that happening on some level," he said.
Chloe Grace Moretz, who"s had her own highly publicized issues with Kardashian in the past, chimed in, too. "Everyone in this industry needs to get their heads out of a hole and look around to realize what"s ACTUALLY happening in the REAL world," the Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising star tweeted. "Stop wasting your voice on something so petulant and unimportant."
In Sunday"s episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kris Jenner told Kardashian to call Swift and "make amends." But as her Snapchat followers would soon discover, she had no intention of doing so. "Thank you for your lovely advice," she said, "but I"m not going to take it."
Though celebs like Selena Gomez and Chlo Grace Moretz have already shared their thoughts on the Kim Kardashian-Taylor Swift-Kanye West drama, the latest to chime in are Demi Lovato and Zendaya, utilizing some seriously strategic tweet fav"ing and un-fav"ing.
E! reported that Zendaya favorited (and then unfavorited) a few tweets, including one that said: "I"m glad Zendaya was never really down with that whole Taylor squad..." and another that featured a photo of her alongside Kim, Katy Perry, Taylor, and Selena with the caption: "Crop Zendaya out of this. She is pure." Right now, the faves are nowhere to be found, but screen shots are forever. (Though it should be noted that those can be faked, too.)
Demi Lovato also reportedly pulled a similar move, fav"ing a tweet that said, simply, "I LOVE KIM KARDASHIAN," with a series of laugh-cry emojis, on-point fingers, and other forms of emoji praise. No matter where their opinions stand, some people know how to keep their shade on the sly.
Related: Why Demi Lovato Is Meeting With Fans Before Her Future Now Concerts
