New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday he suspects Mitt Romney would "take back" his recent "birther" joke if given the chance.

"I think if he had to do it over again, he wouldn't make the joke," said Christie, who is slated to give Tuesday night's GOP convention keynote address, during an interview on the "Today" show. "When you're on camera 12, 14 hours a day and you're out at big rallies and you're just going off the cuff, there are going to be times when you're going to wish you could take it [back].

Christie defended the GOP presidential nominee from criticism that the remark was an attempt to appeal to so-called "birthers," who claim President Obama was not born in the United States.

"He has been the clearest, most affirmative of all the Republican candidates who were running for this nomination in saying he didn't think this was an issue. He believes the president was born here in the United States and that it shouldn't be discussed."

At a campaign event in Michigan on Friday, Romney made a joke referencing the conspiracy theories surrounding the president’s birth certificate.

“Now, I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born. Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital," the presumptive GOP nominee said at the rally.

"No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."

The Obama campaign jumped on Romney's comments, releasing a Web video on Saturday saying, “America doesn’t need a birther-in-chief.”

Obama was born in Hawaii and the White House has released his long-form birth certificate. 

On Monday, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus was involved in a heated exchange with MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who accused the GOP of playing the "race card" against Obama. 

“That cheap shot about 'I don't have a problem with my birth certificate' was awful,” said Matthews, angrily, on "Morning Joe." “It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card.”

Priebus rebuffed Matthews’s charges as "garbage" and said that Romney had tried to bring some humor into a long campaign.