Catalina Camia

USA TODAY

New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno denied there was any link between a Hoboken redevelopment project and the Christie administration's assistance to the city in obtaining recovery aid after Superstorm Sandy.

"I deny any suggestion made by Mayor (Dawn) Zimmer that there was ever any condition on the release of Sandy funds by me," Guadagno said Monday at a news conference in Union Beach, N.J.

Zimmer said in an MSNBC interview Saturday that Guadagno and Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Richard Constable III told the mayor she would have to go along with a private development project supported by Christie if Hoboken were to receive Sandy relief money.

The allegations by Zimmer, a Democrat, dominated headlines this weekend as Christie tries to get past a bridge scandal that threatens his political future. Christie, a Republican, is scheduled to take his oath of office Tuesday for a second term as governor.

In an interview published Monday with Yahoo! News, Christie says he intends to heed the lessons from the politically motivated lane closures on the busy George Washington Bridge orchestrated by his aides and appointees.

"I will learn things from this," he told Yahoo! News in an interview posted Monday. "I know I will. I don't know exactly what it is yet that I'll learn from it. But when I get the whole story and really try to understand what's going on here, I know I'm going to learn things."

Christie spokesman Colin Reed pushed back over the weekend on Zimmer's allegation. "It's very clear partisan politics are at play here as Democratic mayors with a political ax to grind come out of the woodwork and try to get their faces on television," Reed said in a statement released Saturday after Zimmer's interview on MSNBC.

In other parts of the Yahoo! News interview, Christie said:

• He got a heads up from Jimmy Fallon about the parody of Born to Run that the late-night talk show host and his idol, Bruce Springsteen, sang about the bridge scandal. The governor has yet to watch the video , but was told by his son, Andrew, "It's actually kind of cool to have Bruce saying your name."

• He said he is "readier, if that's a word," for a 2016 presidential bid if he decides to run. Matt Bai of Yahoo! reminded Christie of his 2011 comment that he wasn't ready when he declined to seek the presidency in 2012.

• The spotlight and scrutiny amid the bridge scandal has been unpleasant. "I don't think anybody knows what it feels like to have the kind of attention that I've had ... until you go through it," Christie said. "It's awful. Listen, it's awful. I can explain to you as vividly as you like, but you won't get it."

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