Newark Mayor Cory Booker Bans Conan O'Brien from Airport

"You don't mess with Newark, chump!"

By HASANI GITTENS

Updated 9:06 AM EDT, Wed, Sep 30, 2009

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What the heck are they doing over there in Jersey? Must be the fumes.

Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, has taken time out of his busy day to respond to a joke Conan O'Brien made about his city on "The Tonight Show" last week.

In a YouTube posting that the Twitter-loving mayor tweeted mid-Tuesday, Booker goes at Conan, and he goes hard. (would you expect any less from Brick City?)

First things first though, the joke in question goes like this:

Conan: "The mayor of Newark New Jersey wants to set up a citywide program to improve residents' health... The health care program would consist of a bus ticket out of Newark."

Cue rim shot.

Booker's first response is to extol the many virtues of Newark. "Conan you fail to understand our city is one of the fastest growing cities in the Northeast," he says, touting "strong neighborhoods, strong people and record reductions in violent crime." (Of course, that was probably because of the record high levels of violent crime in the first place.)

Then Booker cuts to scenes of his reporters/operatives/cronies interviewing people in the street about how they feel about the joke.

While one woman asks, "Who's Conan O'Brien?" Another man, predictably, goes crazy.

"You gonna need some health care!" the man shouts as he is held back by the camera crew. "This is Newark you talkin about! You don't mess with Newark, chump!"

After that, Booker notes that Newark has one of the largest airports in the United States and issues his final proclamation.

"So now, according to the powers vested in me by the people of Newark, I'm officially putting you on the Newark airport no-fly list."

" Try JFK buddy!" Booker declares.

All in all, when messing with Newark, Conan should consider himself lucky he didn't get shot.

The Tonight show didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

A few hours after the post first went up, Booker tweeted: "Just got call from the White House. Pres is inviting Conan & I to come have a beer & try 2 settle this. This could be a teachable moment."