Christie ends shutdown, but beach pictures left an imprint

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie reacts to a question during a news conference in Trenton, New Jersey, US on March 28, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

The two-term Republican governor signed the $34.7 billion budget early Tuesday and sounded an unapologetic tone over the aerial photos snapped by NJ.com that showed him at the state governor's residence at Island Beach State Park.

The pictures sparked a global reaction: countless memes featuring a Photoshopped cutout of Christie in a beach chair, headlines on international news sites and a full-scale media blitz from Christie's spokesman.

"If they had flown that plane over that beach and I was sitting next to a 25-year-old blonde in that beach chair next to me that's a story," he said. "I wasn't sitting next to a 25-year-old blonde. I was sitting next to my wife of 31 years."The photos are part of a bruising finale for the term-limited governor, who had been a regular on late-night TV and a Republican superstar after Superstorm Sandy hammered his state in 2012.

Christie's job approval in New Jersey has sunk to 15 percent, tumbling after the convictions of three former aides in a scheme to deliberately cause traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge, his failed presidential run and his backing of President Donald Trump.

He's become such a political liability in New Jersey that his top deputy, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, running to succeed him, hammered him over the beach photos: "Beyond words," she said.

People in New Jersey and beyond seized on what many saw as a let-them-eat-cake gesture by the state's chief executive.

"Taxpayers can't use the parks and other public sites they pay for, but he and his family can hang out at a beach that no one else can use?" asked Mary Jackson, a Freehold resident. "Doesn't he realize how that looks, how people will see it as a slap in the face?" Christie acknowledged his lame-duck status on Tuesday after the budget signing but predicted that if Guadagno wins he still might have some influence with lawmakers — but less if Democrat Phil Murphy wins. The Legislature is expected to leave Trenton to campaign since all 120 seats are up this year.

Christie denied the beach photos played a role in how he negotiated with lawmakers and said it was "the pressure of a shutdown" that contributed to the budget resolution. He also has said he only worries about polls when he's running for office — and he's not.