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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, I'm Steve Adubato.

I wanna kick this program off with a gentleman who most people recognize if they watch our program and a whole range of other public broadcasting programs.

Kevin O'Toole is the Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a former state senator in the state, the head, the co-head, excuse me, of O'Toole Scrivo Law Firm in our state, and also a columnist with NJ Globe.

Good to see you, Kevin.

- Good to see you, Steve.

How are you?

- I'm doing great.

Listen, I was reading NJ Globe and you actually wrote a column called Two Years is a Lifetime.

We're taping this in mid-March, it'll be seen later.

You talked about leadership at the Port Authority and in other places, but the biggest leadership lesson you and your colleagues at the Port Authority learned over these past two plus years has been?

- Well, first of all, when a crisis comes upon you, real leaders gotta act.

Like so, two years ago almost to the day, you know, I get news that our senior staff had all had to be quarantined 'cause they all had been exposed to the virus.

And all of a sudden, the Port Authority with 8,000 employees was going into lockdown.

And so you've gotta kind of like act quickly and you've gotta surround yourself with really smart people.

And there's no playbook for it, Steve.

You gotta keep the agency moving forward with the highways and the roadways and the ports, and you gotta make sure the employees feel safe and they are safe and their families feel safe as well.

So you've gotta kind of react and you can't show them that you're nervous or you're worried.

- You know, I gotta follow up on that because you've also joined us on our sister program, Lessons in Leadership, so we've talked leadership before, but what struck me about this column is that you said leaders must be fearless.

You kept talking about being fearless and I've got this thing where my father, my late father.

who you were very close to and I was at times, but lemme just put this out there.

My father used to say the best leaders, it's not that they're not afraid, it's that they are afraid but in spite of being afraid, they act anyway, they do what's courageous anyway, but it's not that they're not afraid.

Help me on this fearless thing, Kevin.

- So I mean, it's perspective.

So I have a mother who came from North Korea when she was 13 and she lost some of her siblings on the way.

And she saw some of the real death in front of her when she marched from Unsan to Seoul.

And she was kind of fearless as she saw the very worst.

You see people who are suffering, whether it's they get a brain tumor, whether they lose their jobs, or they have a sick child, like those are things to be fearful of.

But even in those moments, you've gotta seize the moment and you have to lead.

It just comes upon you 'cause you just can't wring your hands and say, oh, you know, poor me.

That doesn't get you anywhere.

And when you lead, when you're given the privilege to lead an organization, they don't wanna see people who are afraid.

Even in your inner self, as your dad would say, even though you have some of those doubts, you've gotta project strength and resiliency and determination and support and gratitude and move the organization forward.

'Cause if you don't, they will suffer.

- You know, by the way, check out NJ Globe, one of our media partners, to find previous columns from Senator O'Toole.

But I want ask you this, Kevin, you've been out of government official elected office for how many years?

- Since '17, so working on five years.

- Okay.

The kind of leadership you just described, fearless, courageous, doing what's right, so that others who are following you or need to follow you have courage themselves.

To what degree do you see that in government today?

Both parties, across the board, how rare is it?

- Rare.

It's not encouraged.

You know, when you're in the elected arena, when you're in the Senate or the assembly, you're worried about the next election.

I mean people, when the redistricting just went by, they're terrified.

I mean, grown men-- - Talk redistricting, explain to folks, 30 seconds or less.

Like what, there's a redistrict commission?

What's that mean?

- Sure, every 10 years, after a census, there's a redistricting.

You gotta cut the state into 40 equal districts, 235,000 per.

So what happens is the legislative districts get rejiggered a little bit and some people lose, their safe districts, become competitive, and people worry about their livelihoods.

And when they do that, Steve, all some of these folks are born and bred to do is worry about their next elections, and that doesn't breed a leader.

That doesn't breed fearlessness.

That breeds people who just worry about a calculated decision to move onto their next election.

- How does that impact those of us who are constituents of those elected officials?

- Well, listen, I think it impacts us because I think there's a, the day of 30 years ago when you had true leaders, and your dad was one of 'em, Joe Doria, people that would go out there and make these-- - Former assembly speaker Joe Doria, I'm sorry, go ahead.

- It's all right, they'd make these broad policies working together with Republicans and Democrats.

And one of the things I wrote about recently, Steve, is they don't encourage that.

There's no arena, there's no schooling, there's no college.

There's no framework that says, hey, leaders on both sides, let's have a framework that we can have a discussion.

D.C. is not leading and Trenton's not leading.

You see, all you're worrying about is the cheap political hits and you move on.

And listen, in my earlier day, I would do some of that.

As I grew less afraid about losing an election, I said I have to be the big thinker and work with crossover with the Brian Stacks or the Steve Sweeneys and Nick Scutaris or Joe Laganas, Vin Gopal.

The Democrats who are in the leadership positions, you have to work with them.

And I encourage a lot of the Republicans, don't just be a bomb thrower and say no on everything.

Work together on infrastructure, education, you know, educational lag, which we're talking about.

Environmental issues that we can get behind, labor issues we can get behind.

But I think they're so conditioned to just go in this narrow field that plays to the next election, primary or general, and people are afraid, and they just don't grow the leaders of yesterday.

And I'm sorry I'm saying that.

- Well no, it's okay.

And Senator O'Toole, who has been out of government for five years, understands it from a perspective of running for office every two years.

I have disclosed this before, that I served in legislation for a very short period of time in the eighties.

And I can appreciate-- Kevin we didn't have to remind people that it was two years, all right?

Was that a peace sign?

- It was a peace sign, Steve, but you said two years.

- Okay.

Yeah, it was two years.

But in that short period of time, I know exactly what he is talking about.

You think you're gonna do the right thing.

You're there to be courageous, to be fearless.

And then you're like, wait a minute, but if I lose this election, I'm not here anymore.

Real quick on that.

- But Steve, how terrified were you when you were losing, seriously?

When you lost, you were broken and you were afraid.

- Oh, thanks, Kevin.

- But listen, you've become this, you know, Emmy winner, it was the best thing that ever happened to you was losing that election.

- Not at the time, I didn't think it at the time.

- Of course, not at the time.

But now when you look back, it was the best experience.

And from that, born from that experience, you've this leadership, you know, trait that was you know, cast upon you.

Largely shoved down your throat by your father.

- But I wanna again, not about me, but there's a larger issue here.

Do you believe that our elected officials in Congress, in the state legislature, across the board, governors, whomever who have to run again, or have the ability to run again if they're not term limited, that their fear of losing is so great that their sense, and this sounds like a deep psychological question as well.

That if you're not in elected office, you don't matter?

And that's just not true.

- Yes, yeah, so if this elected office defines many of these people, when they go on to their, like you see senators, they're easy.

As opposed to retiring willingly like I did, and Bill Gormley and others do, they'll die in office because that identifies them.

They don't wanna leave the office.

They'd rather be in a body bag than literally retire willingly because they wanna be known as the Senator.

'Cause people get their, they call them back, they get respected, they get all the service, the great tables.

The reality is if you are lucky enough to be an elected official, take advantage of that very small period of time you are elected and make bold decisions, do things that are amazing.

And 'cause I'm telling you, if you don't take that opportunity, you will be regretful down the road.

And I talked to a lot of legislators who are retired, forced and voluntary, and they regret not taking advantage of the time they were in office.

- As you listen to Kevin O'Toole, a couple things.

I believe, in post-production, we'll put our Democracy at a Crossroads.

We haven't used the word democracy at a crossroads or that phrase, but everything that Kevin O'Toole's been talking about is exactly about democracy being at a crossroads or beyond that, something worse.

And also let me say that O'Toole Scrivo is one of the law firms that support what we do.

Kevin, I wanna thank you for joining us.

We appreciate your perspective.

- Thanks, Steve, appreciate it.

- Check out NJ Globe for Kevin O'Toole's columns and a whole range of other things.

Thank you, Kevin.

- Thanks Steve, good talking to you.

- You got it, stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by John Farmer, Jr., director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, my alma mater.

Not only Rutgers, but Eagleton.

It's very hard to get into.

I still have no idea how I got in, John, but that's another story.

(John laughs) - You're one of our most prominent alums, so thanks for having me, really appreciate it.

- Hey, let's do this, let's talk about really important things.

We're taping in the middle of March.

It'll be seen later (sighs).

I've said this to you before.

The graphic will come up, "Democracy at a Crossroads."

We talked about six months ago, John.

Is our system of democracy at greater risk than it was six months ago, and if so, why?

- Well, I think our system at large is.

I mean, so we've had obviously the internal threats to democracy that we've talked about before that culminated in the riot at the Capitol on January 6th, and now we see what the real threat to democracy is.

Ultimately, it's the use of brutal force, which we're now seeing in the Ukraine.

So democracy is struggling on many fronts, both domestically and internationally.

And I think we are at a crossroads.

- John, again, because we're taping in the middle of March, we hope and pray for the people of Ukraine, but we do not know what's gonna happen, and we're not doing war coverage, but there is a larger question.

You connect the fight for democracy and the movement of Vladimir Putin and Russia, a non, small "d" democratic government, with our crisis to democracy.

Why is that?

- Well, because he illustrates what lies at the end of a failed attempt to govern democratically.

Through history, democracies have been very fragile, and they've ultimately ended in totalitarian forms of government.

And that's what we have to be conscious of constantly, and I think something we've lost sight of over the years.

We've taken for granted that our system would just work on its own without our attending to it, and so we could be free to have our violent disagreements and somehow everything would be fine.

I think what we see in the world now, and it's really culminating right now in the Ukraine, but this movement toward authoritarian governments has been going on now for decades.

And we have Russia, we have China, we have Hungary, we have even the government of Poland has sort of started tilting toward authoritarianism.

And I think part of that is a reaction to the sort of excesses, maybe, of freedom of expression that the social media has brought about, but we've really lost sight of the fact that we have to pay attention to the need to engage with each other and to compromise.

And it's exasperating to compromise, but it's the essence of our system.

Our system is set up so that if we don't compromise, it won't work.

And so that's why I connect the two, because Putin is the logical endpoint of a failed experiment in democracy.

- So John, you're the former Attorney General in the state.

You believe in and have lived by the rule of law for many, many years.

There are a significant number of Americans who don't agree with what you're saying in this sense.

They argue that, A, we make too much, particularly those of us in the media, academia, we make too much of January 6th.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with what you're talking about, A.

And B, it was a protest, and former President Trump has said really positive things about those who, not just protested, but, in fact, rioted that day and assaulted the United States Capitol and put members of Congress at risk.

And finally, not my opinion, many of them argued for Vice President at the time Mike Pence, for horrible things to happen to him.

Am I overstating this?

Am I engaging in hyperbole, John Farmer?

- No, I don't think so.

I think anybody who tried to minimize the shock of what happened on January 6th either doesn't understand how our country is supposed to work or has other motivations that are nefarious to our future.

- Hold on, John, devil's advocate, devil's advocate.

They were just, they wanted to stop what they believed to be a fraudulent election, which the former president continues to state was a fraudulent election.

70 to 80% of the Republicans in this nation who were polled say the President, Joe Biden, is not really the president.

They're just protesting what they thought was a stolen election.

- That's been trending in our politics now for a couple decades, the challenge to the legitimacy of whoever's the president.

Both parties have engaged in it, and it's gotta stop, because the theory that somehow that election was stolen has been tested in literally dozens of court cases, some of which I've been involved in, and nowhere, nowhere has it been established.

At some point, you have to come to grips with reality, and the reality is that the election wasn't stolen, that Joe Biden is our president.

And what to say to people who disagree, they're not looking at the facts.

- Yeah, but when I say devil's advocate, what I really mean is what do we say to those who say, "I don't care, what you say, John Farmer.

I don't care that you were Attorney General or that you're the head of the Eagleton Institute.

I don't buy it.

I believe it was stolen."

So if people believe that, and if former President Trump, and it's not about President Trump, but he's the one saying this, and he has a lot of people following him.

If people continue to believe, in both parties, but disproportionately Republicans right now, that elections are not legitimate, what does that mean for our democracy?

- It means we have a long way to go to sort of recover our civic values.

We've reached a point now where people, because of the way that they're getting their news and the way that social media works, where we have basically the commercial algorithms that drive it, that tend to drive polarization by basically reinforcing whatever proclivities people express.

We're now at a place where you can have that kind of sort of almost pre-Civil War atmosphere where you can't talk to the other person.

- Pre-Civil War?

- In other words, prior to the Civil War, you had basically, it reached a point where the people in the North couldn't even talk to the people in the South.

The narratives were so different.

It's something that I studied extensively in law school.

And it's remarkable how we've almost replicated that today, where people can't even reach common ground about what the facts are.

So I think the process of recovering our civic values has to start with taking a really hard look at the media environment in which we live, in which there are very few outlets, like, frankly, PBS, that do strive to be down the middle and to present both sides of things, and to force both sides to be in the same conversation.

So what happens now is all you're hearing about, what we're hearing from, are the people you agree with.

When you encounter someone who doesn't agree with you, we almost have nothing to say to them.

And that's, I think, what you're driving at with your devil's advocate point.

Where do you start to that conversation?

If they choose to believe that the election was stolen, how do you persuade them otherwise?

Very difficult task.

- I'm gonna push this even further.

I know there's a time issue, but I wanna push this further.

If people believe certain things, but then they go to news sources, information sources, social media sites, news organizations, whatever they are, that simply tell them that's right, well then, what the heck are we supposed to do, who have no, I say this all the time, people say, "What do you mean, you don't have horse in the race?"

The only horse we have in the race is democracy.

It's not about D's and R's, Conservatives, Republicans, then what is our job in all this?

- Well, I think your job, I mean, the job of people who don't have a horse in the race, is to try to talk to both sides and try to persuade them that these differences they have can be overcome if there's a sincere effort to do it.

But I think that what fundamentally has to happen, I think, Steve, is we have to take a look at regulating the public marketplace, the marketplace of ideas.

- What does that mean, real quick, we've got the First Amendment.

What does that mean, John?

Freedom of speech, freedom of press, what does it mean to regulate the market?

- Freedom of speech, it's not absolute.

That's been established in court cases.

I think the recent decisions by the Supreme Court, equating spending with speech was a mistake.

We have other free societies where speech is regulated.

And what's clear about our Constitution, it was intended to be a pragmatic document, not some metaphysical treatise that you parse like an astrophysicist or a high priest of some kind.

The Constitution, as Justice Jackson said, is not a suicide pact, but the sort of absolutist rulings of the Supreme Court on some of the issues have set up a situation where it could become a suicide pact.

If they've created a situation where spending is speech and that social media can't be regulated, political spending can't be regulated, dark money prevails, they're creating an atmosphere of total chaos, and I think that needs to be looked at.

- John Farmer, the former Attorney General, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

Thank you, John, as always.

- And thanks for having me, really appreciate it, Steve.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato, stay with us.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're honored to be joined by Andi Williams, who is Executive Director of an organization called Community in Crisis.

Good to see you, Andi.

- Good to see you, too.

Thanks very much.

- Andi, back in 2013, two overdose deaths in the space of just a week in Somerset Hills in New Jersey led to the beginning of this organization, this movement.

What is it and what impact are you having?

- Well, we began as a small group around a kitchen table, to all volunteers, and we decided there and then that we needed to do something to prevent any more overdose deaths as best we could.

We've come an awfully long way since then.

We really, we look at ourselves as kind of two pillars of focus, the one side being prevention education, raising awareness about the dangers of substance use, so preventing that path before they even start down it, hopefully.

And then the other end, we're like the book ends of substance use disorder.

The other end of that would be helping people, seeking and in recovery, find sobriety and lead a healthy and fulfilling life.

- We're putting up the website as we speak right now.

- Thank you.

- Why, from a personal perspective, Andi, obviously you care as a member of the community, someone who cares about the people in your community.

Is there a personal connection for you?

- Well, fortunately not within my immediate family.

I would defy anyone to say that they didn't have it in their larger, extended family.

- Absolutely, same here.

- Yes, definitely, but I have three children, all of whom are now in their twenties, and it was there but for the grace of God that helped me sort of really be driven by the passion.

'Cause I realized, there and then, when I saw which two kids had actually overdosed during that particular week that you referenced, I knew it could have been my kid.

You know, successful, seemingly no cares in the world, just had everything in life to look forward to.

So that's been my driving force, and I think that applies to most of our staff here and volunteers, too.

- Have we done enough, Andi, to destigmatize the issue of use of drugs, opioids, et cetera?

Have we done enough to do that?

- Well, when you talk about stigma, definitely not.

A report came out not that long ago from Shatterproof, that actually said that, even amongst the medical community, there was high percentage of people who still considered individuals suffering with substance use disorder as having made poor choices, being weak, and just terrible attitudes towards it.

When at the end of the day, our message is that substance use disorder is a treatable, chronic disease, like diabetes, like cancer, and the more that we spread that message the more support we will be able to garner, and the more individuals will feel that they're being understood and listened to, which doesn't often happen.

- By the way, you talk about, I ask every not-for-profit leader this question.

You have to raise money on a regular basis, right?

- We do.

- Foundations, corporations, correct?

- Yes.

- Yeah, it never ends.

Real quick, could I get 30 seconds on harm reduction?

What's harm reduction?

- Well, harm reduction is a little controversial, but it's evidence-based and it's everything from using Narcan, which is an opioid antidote reversal; it's a nasal spray and also an injection to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, to using fentanyl test strips to check and see if a substance actually contains fentanyl, 'cause as little as two milligrams can potentially cause a fatality.

It can be medicated assisted treatment.

So it's really about meeting people where they're at.

It's understanding with compassion that they have a disease and that they need help.

So it would be like saying to somebody with cancer, "Okay, just get well by tomorrow.

Take this treatment and get well."

It just doesn't happen that way.

- Yeah, I'm sorry, it's one thing to talk about recovery, which is incredibly important, but prevention is...

It's not one without the other.

Andi Williams, who's Executive Director of Community in Crisis, I wanna thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

I appreciate the opportunity.

- Okay, that's Andi, I'm Steve.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato Is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Operating Engineers, Local 825.

IBEW Local 102.

Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Wells Fargo.

The New Jersey Education Association.

And by Suez North America.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

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