>> major funding is provided by RW J Barnabas health.

Rowan University, educating New Jersey leaders, transforming New Jersey's future.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey business magazine.

The magazine of the New Jersey business and industry Association, reporting to executive and legislative leaders in all 21 counties of the garden state.

And by Politico's New Jersey playbook, a newsletter on garden state politics.

♪ >> Chris Christie swings for the fences.

But will he get another turn at bat?

hey everybody.

It's reporters roundtable.

Our panel today from New Jersey monitor, the editor at Politico, and NJ advanced media.

We will talk to the panel in a bit but we begin today with a look at the Republican presidential nominating process with the leader of the pack skipping the debates and paying for it.

30 point lead in the polls.

Patrick Murray is the director of the Marne with University polling Institute and he joins me now to do the math.

>> it's good to be with you.

David: so let's talk about this pull you have out this week.

Did you find that, no matter what, Trump is going to trump the field?

>> obviously what we put out was a national poll and there's no such thing as a national primary .

It's just a preference pick.

But Donald Trump is the clear favorite of anybody who identifies as a Republican.

The vast majority will prefer him as the nominee.

Even if you look at the polls in the early states, they back that up.

Not as wide as a margin we see nationally.

But certainly the idea that these other four candidates -- I forget who has dropped out at this point.

They are all fighting for second place here.

The question really is, does the second-place finisher come 20 points behind Donald Trump or 50 points behind Donald Trump?

David: you found that GOP voters would love it if everyone just cleared the field, got out of the way.

>> This is true of trump supporters certainly.

The vast majority say, this guy was president and he deserves to get the deference of an incumbent president.

Everybody else should have stepped aside and let him have the nomination.

On the other, the folks who are supporting Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, they can't make up their mind about what they think should happen here.

Should the candidates decide which one of them is the strongest candidate and defer to that?

or should everybody staying in and see where the chips fall?

it was a split decision in the poll.

They don't have a real strategy about how to take out Donald Trump.

David: Chris Christie was going to use the debates to shame trump or punch him in the nose.

But Trump showed him by not showing up I guess.

Without Trump, Christie has struggled for relevance.

>> yeah.

That was his whole campaign, built on being able to Goto to toe with Trump and make him answer these tough questions that got tougher in this most recent debate.

In terms of his fitness for office.

Without that, it's empty.

As you said, you are swinging away in an MC -- empty boxing ring without a sparring partner.

One of the questions that we've vast about Chris Christie is, what is he in this for?

he is very calculating.

He's not going to do something unless he will get something out of it.

Certainly we don't see one when he's 2% of the polls nationally and 11% in New Hampshire.

But you know, I think what we saw from the last debate is a long game for Chris Christie.

If he six in this and Donald Trump is in fact convicted on some of these crimes, there's a sense that maybe in his mind that this could in fact shake up the nominating process even if Donald Trump has already won all the primaries.

At the same time, even if Donald Trump wins the nomination and loses the election, Chris Christie can say, I told you so.

If Donald Trump wins the presidency and does what he promised to do, a politics of retribution, and people get tired of that quickly, people have forgotten what it was like and it will be even worse in a second term.

Chris Christie looking ahead to 2028 can again say, I'm the guy who told you so.

Maybe that's his long game.

David: your poll confirms that he is still the least liked amongst all of the potential Republican candidates.

How did he do this week on the debate stage?

>> I think when we are looking at that, that was the key, him setting himself up for the long term.

Quite frankly, I was posting on social media, I thought he should have been the moderator.

He was the only one forcing people to answer questions including himself.

He skipped a few questions particularly around the transgender bill that he signed back in 2017.

That's a typical politician.

I thought his questions and the way he posed them were significantly more pointed and to the point than what the actual moderators were doing.

For a lot of reasons, I thought he did as best as he could do in this situation.

He realized, Donald Trump is not going to be on the stage, what can I do to set myself up the way that I wanted to do originally?

David: is there any calculus or algebra or simple two plus two under which he can emerge from this Shrinking cast of characters?

>> what I said before is that it relies on a very improbable series of events.

Donald Trump wins the primaries but then gets convicted and it throws the Republican national convention into turmoil about what they should do.

The hope is that they would have to turn to somebody who is still in the field.

Chris Christie may be that person.

It's incredibly improbable.

By the same token, that could be the only one that's available for Chris Christie right now.

Why don't you take it?

David: it's what they call new math.

Let's get to a more important poll that came out this week.

America's favorite Christmas cookies.

What did you find?

>> we take this very seriously when you're asking people about their favorite holiday treats.

David: this is not messing around.

>> absolutely not.

There's a huge Friday.

The number one pick by far is that traditional sugar frosted cookie, the snowflake shapes, Christmas tree shapes with icing on top.

That's number one.

I've heard a lot of complaints from the chocolate chip contingent and the gingerbread contingent.

They are in there at number two and number three.

Just not quite the holiday festivity of having all that hard icing on top of the sugar cookie that really says Christmas to a lot of people.

David: here's my thing with your stinking poll.

Oatmeal raisin is way in the back.

I guess that's because it's not very Christmas specific.

But sugar cookies are sugar cookies and frosted cookies are frosted cookies.

I don't know how those two are together.

I guess it's because they are frosted in certain shapes.

Explain that to me.

>> that's it.

That's what people think about.

Getting those Christmas and holiday icons on a cookie.

That's what says Christmas to a lot of people.

David: answering the tough questions.

Things were coming on.

Happy Holidays.

>> absolutely my pleasure.

David: all right, panel.

Welcome to you all.

Let's start with Chris Christie.

From what could be his final debate appearance.

I will admit I didn't watch the entire debate.

It physically hurt a little bit to do so.

Let's look at what everyone thought was his best moment, his takedown of frat boy Vivek Ramaswamy.

>> you do this at every debate.

>> don't interrupt me.

>> [INAUDIBLE] >> you do this at every debate.

You say something.

All of us see it on video.

We confront you on the stage.

You say you didn't say it and you back away.

I'm not done yet!

[APPLAUSE] This is the fourth debate that you would be voting in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America.

[LAUGHTER] David: Chris Christie calling someone else a blowhard.

That's pretty rich, no?

>> it's a little rich.

You know, he achieves what he came to do.

He's always good for a zinger of a line and going after people and their personalities.

So it was a highlight for him.

Don't think it will move the needle for him at all.

He got a viral moment out of it.

David: Mary suggested that Kristi is playing the long game.

Do you agree with that?

where does he go after this?

>> back home to New Jersey.

It is hard to say.

I don't know what the long game is for him except to remain politically active and viable in some other capacity besides being at the White House.

If Trump wins, there's no way after this that he's going to offer him any positions like he did last time.

David: I will be disappointed if you tell us that you watched more than the highlights on the next day.

Any thoughts on this?

>> I had a glass of wine while watching.

I think I watched longer than I intended to.

But by far, the blowhard moment was the highlight of it.

A very Jersey moment.

Again, I don't think it's going to move the needle.

I don't think these debates move the needle much at all.

Most people watching it already have their mind made up or will not make their minds up through this debate.

So it's more for entertainment than taking anything away politically at this moment.

Like you said, they are really sad on top of that.

I'm not sure.

I don't know if there's any more.

I hope not.

It is sad to just keep watching these.

David: I mean, you could also binge watch.

Can you imagine binge watching all of the Republican national debates this year?

>> no!

David: that might be a form of punishment actually.

Let's move on to the general election and get it over with.

Yeah?

>> yeah.

I mean, I think this has proved the futility of these debates.

Kristi is a very capable debater.

Even voters who wouldn't say that they would vote for him would rank his performance fairly well.

If you have the standardbearer of the party just refusing to show up, what option is left?

I think that Trump has shrewdly figured out a way to end run around any of his more legitimate competition who are actually going to be people who are accountable on the stage.

David: some serious news.

Policing in New Jersey.

An investigation into state police hiring practices and toxic workplace.

What's this about?

>> I mean, this investigation has been bubbling under the surface for a number of years yeah -- now.

The state police have struggled for years.

It's been a priority for them to increase minority recruitment.

It's a police force that's overwhelmingly white male.

They've been facing just an absolute cannon volley of lawsuits from black troopers, female troopers, LGBTQ troopers claiming that they were denied advancement, denied an opportunity and faced retaliation and internal investigations.

These are long-standing allegations about the culture of the state police.

The Attorney General's office has been investigating for a couple years now with outside counsel.

We haven't heard anything.

Every once in a while, we ask what's going on with this.

We don't hear anything.

The U.S. Justice Department is reportedly sniffing around a couple of attorneys for civil rights groups.

They tell a -- us they've been meeting with department of justice officials.

They are not saying anything but it seems clear that they are opening up some sort of investigation into the hiring practices there.

David: racial profiling during stops on the Parkway.

State trooper with Nazi tattoos.

This is a department that's been under federal scrutiny before, no?

>> yeah.

Taken altogether, those two things that you just mentioned.

That's an awful look politically, morally.

There's all these lawsuits.

You put it altogether, it makes the state police look really bad.

There hasn't been any political fallout from the Murphy administration for that either which is somewhat surprising, given how serious the allegations are.

David: you don't even really hear anybody out loud talking about the superintendent Callahan even.

>> that's true.

Except for being named in some of these lawsuits, he has invaded any tough questions.

David: your colleague did a piece on this police training conference in Atlantic City where racism, sexism, and other terrible things were on full display.

>> one of the phrases, this was a pep rally for bad policing.

It's a concerning report.

It was similar to the allegations we've heard previously.

It's just a trend that we see here get this report is really highlighting all the issues.

I think time will tell on what recommendations are taken from that report.

David: Sean, you had a piece on this.

How about that?

what kind of recommendations are coming out of this?

what kind of possibility is there for a of that culture?

>> you know, they highlight in the report that this is a private entity street cop training that puts on this conference.

They are based in New Jersey.

They train thousands of New Jersey officers.

The controller drew attention to the fact that this is a wild West of unregulated training.

When a police officer joins the Academy, that training is pretty similar from department to department.

When it comes to the post-professional training that police officers get, it can come from a local municipality, from the county, or an organization like this that puts on a conference where people make jokes about their genitals.

What the controller said is that the AG needs to step in and possibly the legislature and try to regulate what sort of training police are receiving here.

David: some other politics now.

Tammy versus Andy, Murphy versus Kim.

The first lady still getting pushback for either jumping the line or using her husband's political power to her benefit.

How much of that is sticking early in the race?

>> it's hard to say.

We haven't seen any public polling recently.

There is still a long way to go.

It's a year out.

I don't know.

The fact of the matter is, she does have the important support of county chairs who are going to give her the preferred ballot position.

So you know, that's going to trump everything I think at the end of the day.

David: did you say trump everything?

[LAUGHTER] >> no pun intended.

>> we talked on chat box this week.

She called Tammy Murphy an enemy of women which is pretty harsh.

Is Julie in the minority?

what are you hearing?

>> I'm not really sure if other people share that harsh view.

I think that there are a lot of concerns about the nepotism.

People have pointed to her work on maternal health and how she's done a lot of work on that as her time during the first lady.

But now that she's running, people are asking what she's done about education, what she's done about preschool funding.

So there's definitely some pushback.

However, there's also the other side of New Jersey has never had a woman senator.

I think people are seeing that is a potential plus from her, that representation of women at a time of reproductive rights under attack, LGBTQ rights are under attack.

I think that they have used on both sides on this.

David: I can't pass up the opportunity to talk about Hudson County politics.

War of words broken out now between good material candidates -- gubernatorial candidates.

One says he won't support Rob Menendez, the son of Senator Bob Menendez.

Rob represent part of the city.

Rob shot back that Steve was an absentee mayor.

One could think that these two guys don't like each other.

>> yeah.

It's been interesting to see all this stuff play out in public.

Typically in New Jersey, the Democrats have knives for each other.

Typically they only talk about it behind closed doors.

One thing that is significant here is that we have the first New Jersey gubernatorial candidate who is an outpost or.

This is a guy who has no problem taking the fight to the Internet.

We talk about Kristi earlier.

A real pugilist.

Somebody who understands how to get under the skin on twitter or X or elsewhere.

So it will be interesting to see .

As the race shapes up, how that plays out.

I think it will be more than Menendez Junior that he's mixing it up with.

David: let's take a look.

Funny is not the best word for it.

This video on cameo featuring the guy you called the fabulist George Santos.

Let's take a look.

>> hey Bobby.

Look, I don't think I need to tell you but these people that want to make you get in trouble and want to kick you out and make you run away, you make them put up or shut up.

Stand Sir.

Don't get bogged down by all the haters out there.

Stay strong.

Merry Christmas.

[LAUGHTER] David: the guy is getting 500 a pop for these.

>> well, we know that he has a lot of expenses.

Maybe some legal ones for sure.

So I don't know how long that spigot will be open for him on cameo.

Just before we started rolling here today, I saw he did another one where he was trolling Tammy Murphy.

So he seems to be taking quite an interest on the others of the Hudson River from his home in New York.

David: almost 200 thousand dollars already earned by George Santos on that.

Time for our only Jersey moments.

Headlines that are quintessentially Jersey.

>> I wanted to point out that we talked about local bad stuff that police have been up to.

Whether it was the conference or the police investigation.

We had some local police in New Jersey actually who had to apprehend a pig.

I think we were good sports about it.

[LAUGHTER] I'm trying to find the exact text that they use there.

Here it is.

Through the use of de-escalation techniques and the latest technology, officers are able to apprehend a suspect.

Albertine swine.

He was released on his own or cognizance.

David: I'm not even going to touch it.

Mine is only tangentially related to Jersey but it is related to news.

The passing of the great TV journalist public was month it was one of the primary influences of my journalistic life and really a hero to many Puerto Ricans.

I encourage you to read the New York Times obit which chronicles his career as a founder of the young Lord's party in New York in the 60's and 70's and his work as a columnist at the daily news and village choice as well as his stops at channels 2, 4, 5 in New York.

He was smart, funny, honest.

I got the opportunity to meet him outside the federal courthouse in Newark in 2013 during the Bridgegate trial.

While I generally am not a fan boy, it was a real honor need him.

-- to meet him.

The fact that he was humble and kind contradicted the old adage, never meet your heroes.

Your name is ringing out.

That's roundtable for this week.

Thanks very much.

Get to see you.

Happy holidays.

You can follow the show on X and get more content when you scan the QR code on your screen.

For all the team here in Newark, thank you for watching.

Happy Holidays!

we will see you next week.

♪ >> major funding is provided by RWJ Barnabas health.

Let's be healthy together.

Rowan University, educating New Jersey leaders and partnering with New Jersey businesses, transforming New Jersey's future.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey business magazine, the magazine of the New Jersey business and industry Association, reporting to executive and legislative leaders in all 21 counties of the Garden State since 1954.

And by politicos New Jersey playbook, a topical newsletter on Garden State politics.

♪