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Gov. Christie To Warren Buffett: 'Write A Check And Shut Up'

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivers his budget address in the Assembly Chamber of the Statehouse in Trenton, N.J. on Tuesday.
Mel Evans
/
AP
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivers his budget address in the Assembly Chamber of the Statehouse in Trenton, N.J. on Tuesday.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is making some waves today after expressing some harsh words about billionaire Warren Buffett in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan last night.

Christie was talking about New Jersey's efforts to lower taxes on everyone, when Morgan asked him about Buffett, who famously asked the government to raise his taxes. In an editorial in The New York Times last year, Buffett said he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary. Those comments have led President Obama to use him and his secretary as reasons to impose a so-called Buffett Rule, which would require those making more than $1 million a year to pay at least 30 percent in taxes.

Christie seemed annoyed by that conversation.

"He should just write a check and shut up," Christie said. "I'm tired of hearing about it. If he wants to give the government more money, he's got the ability to write a check — go ahead and write it."

CNN has provided this video of the exchange:

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.