The senator's defiance is becoming a real political headache for Democrats heading into the 2024 election cycle.

If Menendez runs in the primary and wins, Democrats will have to pour millions of dollars into a seat that otherwise would have been considered safe.

That gives Republicans their best shot in over 50 years of picking up a Senate seat here in New Jersey, putting Dems who control the upper chamber in a vulnerable position given their razor thin 51 to 49 majority.

It also casts a cloud over their campaign messaging against former President Donald Trump's alleged corruption and criminality.

So it may come as no surprise that there's already a long list of people who'd be interested in running for his seat.

Among them, and the first to declare Menendez, his colleague in the House, South Jersey Democratic Congressman Andy Kim.

Kim spoke about his dramatic decision with senior political correspondent David Cruz.

So all the state Democratic big shots got together last Friday.

They urged the senator to resign.

They must have thought of like, you know, next steps.

You think your name came up in there?

I don't know.

I'm not sure what they were thinking, but all I was trying to focus on is what I thought was best for New Jersey and for the country.

I think it was important that we send a very quick and strong message that we don't stand by.

So I'm grateful to the Democratic leadership in New Jersey for taking that stand so quickly.

So I appreciate their leadership and look forward to working with them on what we do next to try to repair this situation.

Why go out there on your own?

I mean, you're a party guy.

Why not take a few meetings, make a few phone calls?

Why jump out so quickly Saturday morning?

Yeah, well, look, you know, for me, I'm glad we took the steps we did on Friday.

So many of us called for him to step down.

I believe it was the right thing to do.

But then Senator Menendez very quickly came back to us and quite honestly, with a very aggressive statement accusing us, as well as saying that he said, I think his last line was, I am not going anywhere.

And I really did feel that that very forceful and immediate response from the senator deserved a forceful and immediate response to say that this does not stand, that this is not what we stand for, and that he is going to be held accountable.

And if he's not going to step down, that it's going to happen at the ballot box, which is why I felt so.

It was not something I had planned.

I had honestly just pulled that together in a matter of hours.

I my, my, my mom and my dad didn't even know that I was doing this until the that tweet came out.

But I just felt that it needed to happen quickly and that the country needed to see that New Jersey was moving quickly to try to repair this situation.

So I'm going to do whatever I can do to try to fix this.

So was part of it the way he said it?

I mean, I think kind of what I hear from you.

Yeah.

I mean, when he says what he when he had that kind of defiant tone and that I am not going anywhere, it just did not sit well with me.

Honestly, that last line in particular, I mean, it kept me up all night long.

I did not get a minute to sleep from Friday and Saturday just thinking about that state.

I think what bothered me is that it sounded like he was saying like he owns this seat, that this is his seat.

And that's just not true.

It belongs to the people of New Jersey who have entrusted him with this.

And I think that that's really at the core of what really drove me wrong, is that this is not just a, you know, about what he did.

It's about his whole approach, about public service in this way that I just think was so different than mine.

And I think right now we live in the time of the greatest amount of distrust in government in American history.

So many people in New Jersey, across this country and just with so much hesitation, so much concern about how our politics are unfolded, we need to show that there is a way that we can have a politics that restores integrity.

And that's what I hope to be able to do.

We should also say, just for folks watching, that this is very much a political party process that is happening right now.

So in that context, did you talk to any party leaders, the governor, Cory Booker, or any of them, before you decided?

I gave them a heads up that I was doing this, but I felt conviction and I felt compelled to do what I did.

In many ways, it actually kind of reminded me of 2017, 2017.

My congressman at the time, Tom MacArthur, took actions on health care that I deeply disagreed with, that I thought was going to gut preexisting condition protections.

And when he announced an amendment in Congress that it was all over the news, I actually immediately launched a tweet that said, I'm considering challenging him in Congress.

I think I had like 21 Twitter followers at the time.

I, I had no deep ties with the Democratic Party and certainly the leadership in New Jersey.

But I felt like it was the right thing to do.

And I felt that same kind of of conviction this time around, too, that I had to make sure I did everything that I could do to be able to try to remedy this problem and do it in a way with the urgency that I thought the moment needed.

I'll be honest with you, I've gotten a great outpouring across the state and country.

I think people will responded and knew that we needed to have that kind of boldness, that kind of strength, to be able to show unequivocally that this is something that we do not stand for.

So I've been excited and encouraged by that.

Did those party leaders that you talked to try to dissuade you at all?

No one tried to dissuade me.