Fox News reporter John Roberts believes the Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) bridge story has the potential to be “very damaging” because “unlike what's happened with President Obama” and the controversy in which the IRS allegedly targeted conservatives, Christie's scandal happened in his “living room.”

Recently released communications have revealed that a top aide to Christie urged a top transportation official who is a high school friend of Christie to close lanes onto the George Washington Bridge as political retribution against a Democratic mayor who didn't endorse Christie's re-election bid. The lane closures caused a massive four day traffic jam. Christie announced during a press conference today that he fired the aide in question.

During an appearance today on Fox News Radio's Kilmeade & Friends prior to the press conference, Roberts said that the scandal “has the potential to be very damaging to Gov. Christie because, you know, unlike what's happened with President Obama -- you know, the IRS thing was a woman who was in Cleveland. This is in the governor's living room. This is his deputy chief of staff. And as you mentioned his best friend who he went to high school with. It's difficult for him to be able to fully separate himself from this without at least giving the appearance that he doesn't know what's going on in his own home.” 

He added that the scandal “reinforces the worst perceptions about Gov. Christie. It makes it look like a Tony Soprano-type of administration. And while people in New Jersey appreciate many of the things that the governor has done, on the national level, if you want to run for president, you can't look like this is the way that your administration would operate. ”

On the day the scandal broke, Fox devoted significantly less coverage to the story than CNN and MSNBC. Fox's coverage should provide an indication of the network's hot and cold relationship with Christie, a potential 2016 presidential candidate who Fox News chairman Roger Ailes urged to seek the presidency in 2012 and who has previously enjoyed fawning coverage across the media.

Despite Roberts' suggestion that Obama was relatively removed from the IRS story, Fox News has repeatedly manufactured links between Obama and the IRS controversy.