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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato, we kick off the program with Professor Dr. Matthew Hale, associate professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs at our higher ed partner, Seton Hall University.

Matt, good to see you buddy.

- Hey, good to be here.

- We're taping this after the 2024 Presidential and Congressional elections.

Let's say immigration, the economy, inflation, key issues.

Now, let's talk government and public policy.

Where do you think the most significant changes President Trump and the GOP Congress will be making moving into 2025?

- So I think one of the first things he's gonna do is something on immigration.

What that is, we don't know.

He's talked about deporting millions of people, he's talked about troops on the border.

You know, that's something that I think is big and splashy, and he can do a lot because of, you know, being the Commander-in-Chief.

So I would expect that immigration is gonna be sort of front and center.

- Matt, hold on one second.

Mass deportation on day one.

Explain to me, both of us are students of public policy, government programming, and implementation.

Tell me how the heck you do that.

- You don't, and any sort of mass deportation is not something that you can do overnight.

But the point, I think, that Trump is going to attempt to show something on the border dramatic and quick.

So planning how you would move 10 million people is a logistic effort that, you know, would take an enormous amount of time.

But moving troops to the border, moving National Guard to the border, you know, that's certainly something that could happen pretty quickly.

- Let's talk tax policy.

There's a Washington Post story I was picking up on the wires that talks about one of the first actions President Trump and the Republican Congress will take, really involves the reauthorization of the 2017 tax cuts for most Americans, but especially wealthy Americans in corporations.

Do you expect those tax cuts to be extended, and in fact, Professor, expanded by giving greater tax breaks?"

- So I would imagine in the first year that the tax cuts that were enacted the first time around for President Trump, he's gonna do those again.

I would see that sort of, again, a kind of quick low-hanging fruit.

I would expect that in the later years, year two, year three, that that's when you would see even greater tax cuts for the wealthy and significantly more tariff attempts.

So I think that probably the first year, there's gonna be the tax cuts that have already existed, and then after that, they're gonna be expanded along with more tariffs.

Would you argue that the Democrats got destroyed in this election on the presidential side and on the congressional side, even though the country's relatively split down the middle, in large part because of an over obsession with the so-called culture wars?

- I absolutely do.

I think that, you know, if you look at nationally, one of the biggest ads against Kamala Harris was the one where she said she wanted to give gender reassignment surgery to transgender prisoners.

Now, you might have people- - To them and those, Trump... She's into them and those, Trump is into you and yours.

Was that the message that was so powerful?

- So it's not just that she is for other people, it's that it's unfair, it's that she's focusing on people...

The argument that was very successful is that she's focusing on people who aren't like me and my friends.

She's focusing on people that are different.

She's focusing on people that are not like us, and that was very, very effective.

- Us being whom, us being whom, Matt?

- I would say actually the biggest one is probably White working class voters.

And I would say, not just the working class, I think there's a number of people who think that these social issues are not where the focus needs to be.

And the focus needs to be on the economy, the focus needs to be on lowering the cost of milk, and that type of thing.

And so the Republicans were really, really effective at painting her as a crazy liberal, and that doesn't sell well with the majority of the electorate.

- Question, and looking back, is it clear to you that President Biden should have announced much longer, or be pressed to announce much earlier that he was not gonna run for reelection so that an open primary could have taken place, a competitive situation, and let the winner be the democratic nominee, 'cause that's not what happened, clearly?

- Absolutely, and you know, I think that cuts in a couple ways.

Remember that Harris had to sort of adopt a ground game and an apparatus from the Biden administration.

Had they had a primary, whoever won that primary would've had that ground game.

And the biggest reason that Harris lost is that that voter turnout in high Democratic areas, particularly cities, was not good.

Biden had 81 million votes, she's gonna have 74 million votes, maybe.

Trump only had 74 million this time, last time, he had 72.

So he didn't go up that much, she went down because people stayed home.

And that I think is because the shortness of the campaign, there wasn't sort of this long gear up that could get behind a candidate - Question, Matt, you deal with your students every day.

More and more younger people voted for President Trump.

Did you see that on campus?

- I did, you know, we did have a mix.

I'd say the majority tend to still be voting Democratic.

- Was it different by race, Matt, and gender?

- It was a bit of a mix.

You know, I don't think that...

I think there are African Americans on our campus who were voting for Trump.

I think that's something that wasn't expected.

But I think the thing is is that a lot of my students, and I think a lot of students and young people in general, really sort of unfortunately look at all politics, all, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, whether you're working in government, as corrupt and wrong and terrible, and the whole system is a mess.

And so when the whole system is a mess, you vote for someone who promises to smash it and change it and doesn't do things.

- But he was there before.

We saw what that presidency was.

He will fix it, he will clean it up?

- So there's no evidence that that's exactly what he is gonna do.

But there is evidence that he's gonna do things differently.

And I think for many people, all that mattered is we gotta do something different.

Whatever we're doing right now is not working, and so let's try something different.

The fact that most people can't identify exactly what he's gonna do is pretty terrifying.

But the fact is that he was the candidate that came across as, "I'm gonna do something different," and that was very appealing.

- Professor Matt Hale from Seton Hall University will continue not just to talk about the politics and the horse race, boring in a lot of ways, but rather about the policy implications, the impact on your life based on public policy from the presidency and Congress, and also the impact on the State of New Jersey.

My good friend, Matt Hale from Seton Hall, I'll see you soon on campus, my friend.

- All right, Steve, thanks so much.

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

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

- He's back, yes, by popular demand.

State Senator Paul Sarlo, deputy majority leader and chair of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.

Good to see you, senator.

- It's always great to be back with you Steven.

- What's that logo you're wearing?

What's the logo on the?

- New Jersey Senate?

It's my New Jersey Senate pullover.

It's a good for a Wednesday casual fall day.

- Love it.

We are taping about a week or so after the presidential congressional election.

Hey listen, Paul, we'll do political prognostication, some other program.

But real quick, what the heck did the Democrats get wrong?

You represent a working class, middle class district.

I would argue they went for Donald Trump.

What went wrong for the Democrats, senator?

- I think what went wrong, and I think it's proven out now as you look at the results across the country, but if you take a deeper dive into New Jersey, let's also be realistic here.

The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee did not do any campaigning in New Jersey and spend any money.

So putting that aside, I believe the Donald Trump and the Republican Party framed certain issues that scared everyday Americans and working class people.

They focused in on the borders and illegal immigration.

They focused in on some of these woke issues, which only pertains to and placate to a very, very, very, very small minority of the population.

And the Democratic Party did nothing to defend themselves on the fact that the economy is not as bad as you think it is.

Gas prices are much lower than they were when Joe Biden took office.

Stock Market had a pretty good run these last four years, but the Democratic Party did nothing to defend that.

We allowed them to define us, and I think we need to move back to the middle.

That's where I am.

We need to be practical.

We need to be moderate, we need to be main stream.

We need to deal with affordability issues, pocketbook issues, and get back to the basics.

And that's what the Democratic Party needs to, that's what I'm all about.

We can't get caught up on some of these really, really left, woke issues.

Let's get back to the basics.

- Senator I wanna go into this deeper but I... Give me a minute on this stance.

- And you agree with me?

I know you agree with me.

- It's not a question whether I agree with you or not.

My job is to not express my views here as an interviewer.

But I will say this, you keep calling them little, little small, the woke issue.

Woke issues like what?

What are you talking about diversity, equity, inclusion?

Are you talking about pronouns and the transgender community?

What are we talking about in particular?

Because on one hand, the Democrats stand for protecting all people's rights, but where did that go wrong so that it's a tiny fraction of the party and it's too far left?

- We didn't do enough.

We didn't do enough to talk about the economy.

While defending those folks, right, and defending some of those folks, we allow Donald Trump and others to define us as defund the police.

That we've only cared about the transgender community.

We did not give our opportunity to talk about what we stand for.

That we do stand for freedoms.

We do stand for a woman's right to choose, and we do-- - Hold on, senator, why is so hard for so many of your colleagues?

And again, it's not a meat and potatoes economic issue.

But when asked the question, should men who or people who are previously men or born as a man who transitions to be a woman, that they should not compete in women's sports?

Why is that a controversial issue that so many of your democratic colleagues couldn't give a straight answer to?

No, we should protect women in sports and women should compete against women.

That is some radical position.

- Democratic party failed miserably.

It's very simple, right.

Males should not be participating in women's sports, whether it's at the rec level, the high school level, or the collegiate level, period at the end.

- All right.

But I will say this, some of your colleagues on the far, the more progressive wing of the party are not only uncomfortable saying that.

They will not say that.

That being said, people can decide for themselves, but moving forward, I'm -- - I'm not afraid to say it.

I feel strongly about that, and I think if we just talked a little bit more straight up, have a little more practical and common sense, we could have did much better at the polls.

Hey, elections have consequences.

- Yep.

And by the way, Paul Sarlo, beyond being a senator, has been involved in youth sports' his entire adult life, particularly baseball.

That being said, Stay NJ program tax relief program.

First of all, what is it and if it's so great, why is it not taking effect until 2026?

- It's a program that had to get ramped up to raise the revenue to actually pay for it.

We just went in this recently and had cleaned it up a little bit on some of the processes associated with it.

Ultimately, this governor is gonna need to take a hard look in the next budget on taking a look at State New Jersey and Anchor.

Do we combine them in one form?

Do we look at the age limits?

There's an argument that could be-- - The Anchor program, the Anchor property tax program, and the Stay NJ program.

You're saying there may not-- - Those two programs right now, you have two major programs.

Anchor has shown some success, Stay New Jersey's about to kick in next year, and it's ramped up.

There's some monies put aside, but the question will be is can this economy sustain it over the long period of time?

Do we have the revenue sustain it?

And that's gonna be the decisions that this governor in his final budget year is gonna have to make to the legislature.

I'm looking forward to it.

As the longest serving budget chair, senate budget, and appropriations chairman of the state.

I think this is gonna be one of the, our biggest issues that we're gonna have to deal with.

- Senator, you've been a long time advocate of supporting "End of life issues, palliative care."

Why the commitment to this issue, A and B?

What is the state's role in this regard?

- Listen, everybody deserves at the end of their life to have a compassionate end of life.

And I think places like Holy Name and others around the state are doing a really good job of stepping up on the palliative care and end-of-life issues.

And the state has as well.

We started to fund some of these programs to get people the comfort that they need at the end of their life to be there with their loved ones.

In the comfort of a quiet zone, a quiet setting, and be able to do it in such a manner with dignity and grace.

- Last question on school funding.

How screwed up is the state school funding formula state sending dollars to local communities A and B?

If it is, what needs to be done to improve, if not, fix it?

Please senator minute.

- Well, listen, I actually respectfully disagree with some of those folks.

I think we've done a good job in the state of fixing the school funding formula.

We are in the last year of it.

This governor, unlike many governors from both parties in the past, has fully funded the school funding formula.

That school funding formula now is up.

And there are some areas that we need to take a look at and make some modifications, especially in the areas where populations have decreased.

Take Toms River, they've been talking about the large loss of dollars.

They've also had a population decrease in their schools.

They have four high schools.

So we need to take a closer look at some of those communities and towns that have suffered under the school funding formula.

It's about a hundred.

It's only about a little over a hundred in all of our school districts.

- Senator Paul Sarlo.

By the way, next time we have the Senator back, we'll talk about a range of other issues including childcare, affordable, accessible, quality childcare.

Senator Paul Sarlo, deputy majority leader.

That means the Democratic Party and the Senate.

And also chair of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee for seven years.

Longest serving chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Appreciate it.

- Good to see you.

- Stay with us, we'll be right back.

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

- We are honored to be joined once again by the Honorable State Senator Michael Testa from the first Legislative district, a Republican in South Jersey.

Good to see you, Senator.

- Great to be back, Steve.

- You got it, one of our top producers just said before we get on here, "It's a good day to be a Republican."

Is that a good analysis, an accurate analysis?

Good day to be Republican taping this a little bit after the presidential congressional races.

- It certainly appears to be even in New Jersey.

And look, you know, President Trump performed 11 points better this year than he did in 2020.

I think had the RNC and President Trump had more boots on the ground in the state of New Jersey.

He could have done even better.

But you know, for, for whatever reason the analysts indicated that New Jersey was not a battleground state, I would've begged to differ.

And I have to also say that, you know, look, Curtis Bashaw for US Senate as a first time candidate did very well for himself won a number of counties and has a lot to be proud of for the showing that he made in his first election.

- Senator, top priority issues for the new president and the new Congress you believe will be what, I know the president's talked about mass deportation.

I know he is talked about a tax cut, a reissuing if you will, of the 2017 tax cuts for corporations and wealthier people, whole range of issues he's talked about.

What do you think his top priority issues will be and its impact on New Jersey?

- Well, certainly I think that the economy is going to be a top priority for the Trump administration.

The border, I believe, will be a top priority.

Those were, you know, one A and one B, as far as issues were concerned for the election.

I'm really happy to hear that President Trump is going to be focused on bringing manufacturing back to the United States of America.

I'm co-chair of the manufacturing caucus for the state of New Jersey.

I think that will go along.

- Senator, tell folks, sorry to interrupt.

Tell folks what that means.

- Okay, so the, the manufacturing caucus is bipartisan, meaning it's both Republicans and Democrats and it's bicameral, meaning it's at both the Assembly and the Senate.

We're working together to obviously focus on manufacturing in the state of New Jersey.

There's that wonderful sign on the Trenton Bridge that says "Trenton Makes the World Takes."

And we work hand in hand with NJMEP, which is the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program, along with about 9,500 manufacturers in the state of New Jersey.

And right now there's about 40,000 vacant manufacturing jobs in the state of New Jersey.

So when President Trump says he's going to make manufacturing a priority for the United States of America, I'm really hopeful that that trickles down into the great state, the garden state, our beloved state, New Jersey.

- Let, as a follow up to that, you know, you're talking about manufacturing here, but if the president is successful in instituting "tariffs," particularly around products from China, you do acknowledge that that will increase the cost of phones and other things that we purchase that are manufactured in other parts of the world.

I'm just, you're talking about manufacturing, you're talking about economics, talk about commerce.

It's fair that these tariffs have impact on prices, correct?

- Absolutely I mean, look, you look back to a policy like NAFTA, which was really instituted under President Bill Clinton.

You know, fair trade to me.

- The North American Free Trade Agreement.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

- Fair trade and free trade really means to me that you have on both sides, whether it's China or any other country and the United States, you're hopeful that labor costs and shipping costs are going to be the same on both sides and that's simply not the case.

- That's right.

- So I fully understand President Trump's goal to make, to balance things out with other countries 'cause they've been somewhat eating our lunch for many, many years and we, it's been too costly to manufacture things right here in the United States of America.

So if we are going to have true free trade, it needs the mean free trade that China has to comply with the same type of payments to their employees as far as wages are concerned, working conditions and hey, look at that, maybe even environmental conditions like the United States.

We have obviously the EPA federally and we have the NJDEP that our manufacturers have to comply with.

I think it's, it's only going to be truly free trade and fair trade if you have, the conditions are the same on both sides of the aisle.

- You're down in South Jersey, you know, you know this issue well, what do you believe the future of wind is?

Wind energy, particularly with President Trump saying, that's it.

I'm not into this thing.

I'm not buying the whole wind energy, the turbines, they're terrible, out, gone.

I don't know how the federal government does that other than denying funding.

But your thoughts?

- Look, I've been an opponent of offshore wind since I got into office in late 2019.

It never made a whole lot of sense to me.

I think that there are other avenues that we need to pursue in the state of New Jersey.

I look at how large these turbines are.

They're going to be off the coast of the state of New Jersey.

They are a risk to our shipping industry.

They are a risk to our commercial fishing industry, our recreational fishing industry that we have.

Also, it's gonna be a large red light district.

I've said it many times before, it'll be, you know, sort of a futuristic dystopian vista that we would have off the shore of the state of New Jersey.

I don't think anybody really wants that.

They're also extremely expensive and inefficient.

Our energy portfolio in the state of New Jersey, for instance, is roughly 50% natural gas, 40% nuclear, and 10% other, I'm all- - Sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt then.

Don't we need to pursue all forms of energy without saying absolutely not to one particular form.

Do we have that luxury?

- I think we have the luxury to look at what the future of nuclear is with SMR small modular reactors.

And I think we have to be honest about how much we are going to subsidize an industry that is a foreign corporation as far as companies like Orsted.

And we're also, you know, a bill was actually passed that was go, it was meant, a billion dollars was supposed to go into the rate payer's pockets of the state of New Jersey, and instead was going to subsidize Orsted even further, now they've- - Orsted who's gone?

They're gone.

- That's correct.

I mean, and if these things can't be done with all of those available subsidies, I think we have to take a long, hard look.

I'm not against green energy, but we also have to start thinking about the rate payer something that the BPU, by the way, has done a very poor job.

It's in their mission statement that they're supposed to be thinking about the rate payer, yet they've sort of gone all in, you know, with the members of the BPU even wearing offshore wind lapel pins.

I find that considering they're supposed to be sitting as a quasi-judicial branch, almost, having the pin of one of the teams so to speak, shows you which side they're really on.

I think we really need as a state to have sensible energy policy with the rate payers in mind at all times.

- On that note, PS, two things.

One, check out our interview with the president of the Board of Public Utilities.

Our website will be up right now, she has a different perspective than the Senator.

Let's just say that.

Senator, could you give us 30 seconds?

I know it's complex on the school ban, there's legislation that does what to protect school librarians.

And I know your wife is a librarian, if I'm not mistaken.

- She actually is a school librarian.

I have, I think that that piece of legislation is completely radical.

Why would you ever give immunity from either criminal and civil law to librarians so that they could potentially show children what amounts to be pornographic material.

If your neighbor were to show your child that same material, they could be charged with a Megan's law offense.

If they weren't showing pornographic and inappropriate material to children, why would they need immunity in the first place?

It's perplexing.

- We'll have a whole range of conversations around this issue as it's very complex.

The senator has shared his point of view and every time he does, we learn more from him about how he sees things.

Senator Michael Testa from the first legislative district down in South Jersey.

Thank you Senator for joining us once again.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, that is Senator Testa.

We'll see you next time.

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

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by Holy Name.

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And by these public spirited organizations, individuals and associations committed to informing New Jersey citizens about the important issues facing the Garden State.

Promotional support provided byInsider NJ.

And by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

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