Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is mixing it up with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has become a national figure after serving as his state's governor for little more than a year.
The dust-up came on MSNBC's "Morning Joe'' show, which was a sequel to some comments that Malloy had made in The New York Times on February 15. In The Times story, Malloy said of Christie: "Being bombastic for the sake of being bombastic has just never been my take on the world.''
During the televised roundtable segment that lasted more than 18 minutes on MSNBC, Christie said, "In New Jersey, we're not trying to break the unions. The unions are trying to break the middle class. ... I am fighting for middle-class taxpayers in New Jersey against the power'' of the unions.
When host Mika Brzezinski mentioned that Malloy is proposing raising taxes in Connecticut, Christie responded, "Guess what? I'll be waiting at the border to take Connecticut's jobs when he does it.''
Christie and Malloy have never been on the same side. During Malloy's election campaign last fall, Christie came to Greenwich to raise money for Republican challenger Tom Foley, who lost to Malloy by less than 1 percentage point.