[Music] Mikey Sherrill gets tough.

Can Jack Ciattarelli take a punch?

Hey, everybody, it's Reporters Roundtable.

I'm David Cruz.

Final stretch of the race for governor and our panel of navigators includes Joanna Gagis, senior correspondent for NJ Spotlight News; Matt Friedman, reporter for Politico and author of its New Jersey playbook; and Charles Stile, political columnist for the record USA Today Network.

Panel, welcome.

Good to see you all.

The final debate made all the news in the race this week.

I'm going to play the debate highlight in a minute and we can talk about it.

But Matt, the medical publisher, 10,000 deaths flap aside for the moment, who had the better performance?

I think that flap kind of defined, I don't know how to take that away from the debate, what was otherwise pretty standard.

Yeah.

Sherrill is a bit more animated and she gave some actually clear answers that she hadn't given before.

I think, you know, give her credit for actually taking a stance on whether people should pump their own gas, which for whatever reason, she couldn't do anything without a statement that still wasn't clear.

And I think that's been a big frustration with her campaign from a lot of people throughout this is like, just like take a stance, have a clear statement on something.

The medical publishing thing, though, it seemed to come out of like, I mean, they've used this attack a little bit.

It's not new.

It was around four years ago.

And there's some legitimate stuff there.

But I'm afraid by by doing that she may have.

She brought so much attention to this.

And I don't know if that's going to move any voters.

But Chatteralli gave Trump an A in that.

And I think it stepped on her own message since that's what she's been trying to do this whole campaign.

I'm going to pick up on that in a second.

Joanna Sherrill helped or hurt herself with her top gun toughness.

I don't know that either one at this point is really doing anything different.

I think that neither one made a misstep and I think that that's what they both hope to walk away with.

And I think I think you're right.

That was a punch and I think it landed.

You could see in an otherwise very very poised Chittarelli throughout this campaign.

I think that was the first moment I've seen him rattled or frustrated or unprepared with an answer.

He was angry.

You could see it.

And so I think in that sense, she did herself a favor landing that punch.

The question here is how many people are still undecided in this race?

It can't be a very big margin at this point.

If anyone cares at all they're following, then they probably know which side they're going for.

I think the effort here to get something that could go viral could be working for Sherrill.

I'm already seeing it on social media, already seeing that moment play out.

So, you know, she did probably what I think she intended and hoped to do coming out of that debate.

-Chas, I've seen Ciattarelli sharper in past debates.

Hits and misses for you?

-Well, I think one kind of interesting thing that got obscured in this whole debate over the opioids is the fact that Jack Ciattarelli gave Donald Trump an A rating for New Jersey.

Now he hasn't really walked away from Trump, that's pretty consistent, but I think at this late stage, you know, I think that could have been something that they could have exploited, but this became overlooked a little bit.

I also think there were parts of, I agree with Matt said, I mean, there might be, she may have stepped on a message of some debate over whether she went too far or was it inflammatory or within the boundaries of political combat.

But I think there are Democrats out there that are waiting to Pearl clutching Democrats who have been waiting to see her throw a punch and go for the jugular.

And you know there's also a broader part of the Democratic base that that has been tired of Democrats just playing by the old rules that Donald Trump has won the White House twice.

He owns the courts.

And Congress by playing this asymmetrical gutter politics.

So a lot of Democrats want somebody to come out and take a swing.

I was surprised.

You know she she said that he voted for parental rights for rapists.

And he responded by saying she lied about me supporting a sales tax.

That wasn't the Jack Ciattarelli that a lot of people expected I thought.

All right.

Let's go to the thing about the Ciattarelli medical business and the opioid crisis and Mikey Sherrill's haymaker.

Let's take a little look.

My opponent likes to talk a lot about being a businessman, but I think what New Jersey doesn't know is much about his business, how he made his millions by working with some of the worst offenders and saying that opioids were safe, putting out propaganda, publishing their propaganda while tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died.

And as if that wasn't enough, then he was paid to develop an app so that people who are addicted could more easily get access to opioids.

And so as he made millions, as these opioid companies made billions, tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died.

First of all, shame on you.

Second of all, shame on you, sir.

Same on you.

During the Biden administration, she had no problem whatsoever with tens of thousands of people crashing our border each and every day, not knowing what impact they had in our communities with regard to fentanyl crisis, fentanyl abuse, fentanyl distribution, vaccination rates and the like.

Talk to your local police, talk to your county prosecutors in New Jersey.

Since the border's been secured, fentanyl crisis has decreased significantly.

She supported those open border policies.

With regard to everything she just said about my professional career, which provided my family, it's a lie.

I'm proud of my career.

Matt, lots of clutching of pearls, as Charlie said over this.

Did she go too far?

You think?

In the clip we just saw, no.

What she said was not.

But after that, when she said, you killed these people, that's where it kind of crossed the line.

I don't think it needed to.

I think maybe she got caught up in the heat of the moment, because it is pretty devastating.

Like, what she's saying has a foundation of truth to it.

If you look at what these publications said, they did downplay the risks of opioid addiction.

And if you want to talk about the crisis in this country, what Ciattarelli said is true.

There's a lot of fentanyl that comes over the border, but where did this crisis came from?

It came, I mean, there's no simple answer to anything, so I don't want to oversimplify, but it came from these pain medications and the pushing of these pain medications on people starting in the 90s while downplaying the susceptibility to addiction, which is exactly what some of these materials that Ciattarelli's company produced said.

So that is an accurate thing.

And I feel like she kind of stepped on the message by taking it a little too far and making this about mudslinging instead of kind of focusing in on that message that that frankly is a legitimate hit.

Could have left it there and let people think about it.

Joanna, what did you think when you saw that during this otherwise pretty calm debate?

Fair or foul?

It was the first time that I saw the two of them go at each other.

She kind of took the opportunity as he started making comments to jump in.

And that's where, as Matt said, they -- maybe she went too far.

But she also opened up this opportunity, where, as she was accusing him of being responsible for these deaths of tens of thousands of New Jerseyans, he came back with, well, at least I got to walk in my graduation, which, you know, she kind of had him on his heels.

That wasn't a strong response to these very strong allegations that she was saying.

So I think she got him flustered in that moment.

Did she go too far?

I don't know if her team intended for her to say it in the way that she did.

I think she succeeded in getting him, you know, on his heels in a position where he wasn't ready to respond.

I think in a meaningful way.

Yeah, Charlie, that's as hard as I've seen Mikey Sherrill go in this race.

Will it all have been worth it?

I don't know.

I think we'll see soon enough.

I have to say, though, he, I, as Matt mentioned, you know, she was at a, you know, an acceptable level of discourse first, and then she ratcheted it up.

Personally, I think in that exchange, when he brought up the, you know, "I didn't walk, you didn't walk in my, in the graduation," and threw that, that piece of kindling into the fire, I think she just got mad and decided to turn it up from number 10 on the dial to 11.

And I think, I think it really got personal.

I think it is one takeaway is how really personal this race has become and it's moving away from policy.

Yeah.

And when when she kind of mockingly said to him, well, yeah, great, you graduated to kill 10,000 people.

That was that was a little rough.

Matt, Nick Sackle, North Bergen mayor and state senator coming out for Ciattarelli reminds me of Union City mayor and state senator Brian Stack coming out for Christie.

Will it be that big a deal?

You know what?

I mean, it will move some votes probably.

He is not Brian Stack in terms of that.

And I don't, you know, there's a first of all, this is played for the narrative that Democrats are jumping over at Ciattarelli and there's been a few but like this is about Hudson County politics.

Yeah, I have a secret Hudson County politics.

It's often transactional.

Watch what you say on this show, buddy There's various reasons this isn't about really red and blue it's about parochial crazy things also stack versus Sacco Yeah, it's stackers.

It also demonstrates that in Jersey policy generally the big things this shows how little anything is ever gonna change no matter whether it's Chatterelli in office or Sherrill in office because Nick Sacco is one of the biggest pension People and he has a six-figure pension right now at one point.

He had three public jobs.

He was making 300 something thousand a year Now I think he's making a little less than that But he's got this huge six-figure pension from his job as an assistant superintendent It's like and no one's like, oh, I don't want this guy's support It's like well He can do something for me and you know what like people they don't tend to do it out of out of pure principle There tend to be things attached It's also funny in a lot of you know The Democrats who have come over and endorsed Chiattarelli just lost a Democratic primary Where they were talking trash about Republicans and Trump and then they lose badly and then they go But it also as David Wildstein pointed out it could motivate Brian stack was a much more effective organizer to to work even harder so there is that risk so I don't want to overstate it but it's significant North Hudson Republicans meanwhile Charlie are energized is it real or imagine that Hudson is going to go for Chitarelli in some meaningful way I I kind of doubt that I think the whole going back to the Republican play in Hudson County has always been can we cut some of the margin down.

Remember I was I was referring to Chris Christie.

Oh no.

Yeah.

Well, I think but I don't he had stack in his corner last time.

He did.

I think that was Stack's enthusiasm was came a little more after when Christie was in charge of the budget and carving up the pork.

I remember I was at that event where he called him the greatest governor ever.

And, but that was, I think that was after that was long after.

Yeah, it was, but it was Stack worrying about his, his parochial needs in Union City and Chris Christie holding the keys to the co-authors.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, Joanna, you were at a rally, was it, with the Latino coalition?

Was there genuine enthusiasm or just kind of going through the motions?

There was genuine enthusiasm.

This was an event by UnidosUS, their super PAC, trying to turn out Latinos across the state.

I think beyond the enthusiasm is we're going to see some real hard dollars.

And so there's going to be national funding from Latino organizations coming into the state.

They said six, maybe seven figures to really put out a get out the vote effort, because they say they need a ground game, and they believe Latinos are going to determine this election.

Now, remember, there's a divide between the Latino community, right?

We see in District 9 this swing for -- shift towards Trump in the last election.

And so they're aware of that.

They say that they failed in getting Democratic Latinos out in the last election.

They don't want to see that happen again.

And everyone's counting on this coming down to a really close margin.

So, they believe they will be the difference-maker at the end of this election.

Yeah.

Matt, taking a little turn here, can you tell us what in the name of all that is Jersey is happening down South?

Republican versus Republican, and now Norcross versus Polistina.

What's happening down there?

Yeah, well, you see, you know, George Norcross just always gets his tentacles in everything, right?

And he's got quite a good working relationship with Senator Mike Testa, who represents the southernmost district in the state.

But that has caused a lot of friction with Vince Palestina, the senator of the second district.

And Testa essentially allowed one of Norcross's political associates to circumvent senatorial courtesy, to circumvent Vince Palestino holding him up by him "moving" to Testa's district where he allowed the nomination to proceed, which really caused a lot of problems.

Wednesday, we saw this incredible radio debate between Norcross and Palestina.

There was no camera on them that I know of.

I'm sure it would have been just lots of foam at each of their mouths.

Norcross especially, just throwing out really accusations.

Jack Ciattarelli announced he's suing Mikey Sherrill, and Norcross was basically throwing out unproven allegations against Palestine.

Instead of providing evidence for it, he was saying, I'm saying right now that you were blackout drunk and had, you know, did something at Atlantic City Country Club that produced a female victim and got you kicked out.

And if I'm wrong, sue me.

I mean, that's actually more or less what he said.

He actually said it in more hostile terms.

So it was in a Norcrossian way.

Yes, exactly.

And I don't know Norcross.

If you've ever dealt with him, you might notice he does have a lot of lawyers who work for him who might contact you if you say anything.

He's the kind of guy who does sometimes threaten lawsuits.

So it's interesting.

Meanwhile, Steve Fulop, unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate, sort of successful mayor, will leave at the end of his term to join the Partnership for New York City.

Perfect political maneuver or waving the white flag politically?

Charlie, what do you think?

I think he put an enormous effort and rolled the dice in this primary.

And so wave the white flag.

I think he came to the realization that this party was never really going to coalesce around him coming in third.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

I kind of have the numbers in front of me, but I think that's right.

He did come in third.

Yeah, he came in third.

And I just feel he's made a lot of a favorable impression among some of the progressives.

But I think he made too many enemies within the establishment to make his future in the party viable, at least in the short term.

So I think this is I think this is the kind of thing that, you know, sort of suits his skill set and experience.

Joanna, have we seen the last of Steve Fulop, candidate for fill in the blank?

I don't think so.

I think he's probably regrouping, going to go make some money and he'll find a way to try to get himself back into political life.

I find it interesting though that he has to move to New York for this job.

So I don't know how that positions him for a future in New Jersey politics.

Maybe he's angling now for a New York, New York position.

We'll see.

But I don't think this is the last of it.

I think he's always had higher aspirations.

I think this is just a timeout for him.

Matt, Matt, I see you smiling.

Steve Fuller, the president.

I just think it's fun.

I think he burned all the bridges in New Jersey and the only things left were the Hudson River crossing.

So he's got to go.

So listen we we we are marking Indigenous People's Day and so it reminds me of immigration and where these candidates are on that issue.

Joanna let's stay here with you.

You were at this event on the last election.

Is there a sense that immigration is driving voters, at least Latino voters?

Yes, within the Latino community, yes.

Interestingly, I asked one of the folks there if they were hearing anything from their community, from the Latino community, maybe folks who went for Trump in the last election, who are now saying, "Hey, what we're seeing happen with ICE enforcement goes beyond what we thought we were supporting."

And the answer was in the affirmative.

Yes, absolutely.

The community is scared because they say that they're seeing people every day having these ICE interactions who are here legally, who have legal status and are being treated just the same way as folks who don't or folks who may have committed a crime.

And also I'm hearing the two candidates kind of laying out Laying out their positions.

Both have been pretty vague.

I would say until this last debate we heard a little more specificity.

Jack saying he wants this path to recognition.

What does that look like?

He wants individuals to have some type of license or to be recognized.

Mikey Sherrill saying, hey, that's not a thing.

That's no, there's no legal status there.

She, although has not said whether or not she would maintain the immigrant trust directive here in New Jersey.

But I do think that immigration, I think that ICE enforcement is that will be a tool for them to help turn out more voters, especially in that Latino community, which we talked about is going to be really important.

Charlie, how important are they going to be Latinos that is for Mikey Sherrill?

I think it's a significant block.

Joanna mentioned Jack Ciattarelli's position, I thought was one of the most puzzling ones.

This recognition, status of recognition, which was to me a real classic threading of the needle.

He didn't want to sound like he supported a path to citizenship because that would not go over well with MAGA.

So he comes up with this new concoction.

Meanwhile, she threads the needle by tonally sounding like she's on the side of immigration, of the Latino community is concerned about immigration, but she never really commits to anything.

Right.

So she's kind of left herself this maximum flexibility if elected.

I'm going to take your thread the needle metaphor and say that that sews up roundtable for today.

Joanna Matt Charlie good to see you all.

Thank you.

As always.

We are on Blue Sky now.

Follow us there at David Cruz NJ and scan the QR code on your screen to get more roundtable.

I'm David Cruz.

For all the crew here at Gateway Center in downtown Newark, thanks for watching.

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