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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, everyone.

Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program looking at the current state of the Democratic Party, the future of the Democratic Party, with two people who know the party politics pretty well.

Phil Alagia, a Democratic Strategist and the Chief of Staff in Essex County, New Jersey.

And also Julie Roginsky.

Democratic Strategist and President of Comprehensive Communications Group.

Good to see you, Phil and Julie.

- [Both] Great to see you.

- We're taping this, March 21st.

A lot of things have been going on in the country in the next few days.

Don't really know, but this will be seen later that could impact the presidential election.

Julie, I wanna ask you this.

Joe Biden likely to run for president.

This will be seen, he may have announced by then.

Who knows?

By the end of the of the term, he'd be 82 if elected in 2024.

86.

Now, I'm for people being in the business for as long as they can, and being productive and useful, and I don't wanna be taken off the air anytime soon but seriously, the Democratic Party have no other candidates in the stable of candidates that Joe Biden is the candidate again?

Julie, please.

- Well, first of all, I think Joe Biden's done a great job as President.

So I don't really care how old he is or what he does in his spare time as long as he performs for the country.

And I would challenge you to find a more effective first-term president of either party at least in my lifetime.

So I have no problem with Joe Biden's age, provided that he can keep delivering in the second term the way he delivered in the first.

- So age not a factor even if 86 on the back end of a second term with many questioning President Biden's, I don't wanna say cognitive abilities 'cuz I'm not a an expert, and I'm not caring for him personally, and don't have that firsthand experience, but there are times that it is, it looks like the president is confused as to what he's saying and where he is, and we need to be honest about that.

Never pick that up Phil?

- I think it's not about age, it's about ability and capability, and he's been doing an outstanding job.

He's been around the world leading the country, and if he continues to do that, he should be regarded on what he's doing, not how old he's.

There's no mandatory retirement age.

He'll face the voters and they'll make a decision on whether or not they think he can lead our country and I think he can.

He's done a phenomenal job.

- Interesting because I'm curious about this.

Julie, we are taping on the 21st, and we don't know if former President Trump, regardless of what he says on his social media site, is gonna be arrested indicted.

Who knows?

The case will play out if it happens.

If in fact President Trump is indicted, New York.

The DA.

Manhattan.

What implication or what are the implications from your perspective in terms of his candidacy, and the way the Democrats would run against him?

'Cuz there's also a case in Georgia.

There's also, there are other several cases going on, Julie.

- Yeah, hard to say.

I mean, what he's allegedly getting indicted for, and who knows when the actual indictment comes down.

But as we sit here today, he's getting indicted for something that John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina got indicted for about a decade ago.

And John Edwards hung a jury on that.

So it's not clear to me that this is the strongest case against Joe Biden, excuse me.

Against Donald Trump.

It's not clear to me that this should be the ace in the hole that Democrats have been praying for all these years.

It seems to me that there are stronger cases to be made against him whether it's the January 6th investigation that the federal government is looking into or the Georgia interference investigation into the election outcome in Georgia that the DA prosecutor down at Fulton County, Georgia looking into.

So it's interesting that New York is going first, and if this were the only thing to get Donald Trump on I would say, Eh, you know.

Nobody's above the law.

If Phil and I did something like this, we probably get prosecuted.

But nevertheless, I think there are stronger things to get him on because he has been very lawless in my view on a whole number of issues.

The Stormy Daniels hush money payoff seems to be the least of it.

- But there is a danger- - I wanna move to public policy after this.

Go ahead Phil.

- There's a danger.

You know, he gets indicted, and there's a hung jury.

He doesn't get convicted, and then we go the Democrats or something, they go after him again.

It's just gonna be food for the Trump supporters about, it's a witch hunt.

And I think it's only gonna make his supporters more excited about going out there, and reelecting him so.

- Exactly, - You should you should start with your strongest punch, not your weakest punch.

But Julie, on the issues.

Inflation.

Would you say inflation, the number one issue in our country right now in terms of what people care about?

- Pocketbook issues are always the number one issue that people care about.

I think it's inflation.

I suspect if I were to do a focus group or look at some polling today as we sit here today, there's concern about what's happening with the banking system, and potentially a repeat of 2008.

So is it inflation?

Is it recession?

Is it stagflation?

I don't know the answer to that.

And again a lot of this will play out before 2024 when Joe Biden and Congress have to face the voters.

But as we sit here today, it's a very destabilized economic time, that's creating a lot of uncertainty for both the stock market and for Main Street.

- Go ahead Phil.

- When you look at the White House's budget, President Biden just released his budget.

He talked about securing Social Security.

Securing Medicaid.

Things that are very important to the American people.

The Republicans are talking about not extending the debt ceiling, but they're not offering solutions.

So you know, if you look at the President's budget, it's very you know, poll tested.

In a good sense, it's what the American people want.

So I think he's heading towards making sure social security Medicaid stay intact and that we have ways to spend down to reduce the deficit.

- You know the Republican Party has a huge chasm and you know, we talked to Senator John Bramick just earlier today in the taping.

There's the moderate wing of Republican party, which may or may not be getting smaller and smaller.

The so-called base, the Trump base.

Who knows?

30, 35%.

There's a split going on there, and we'll see how that plays out.

In the Democratic party, Julie, is it fair to say that there is a far-left, very progressive AOC wing of the party, if you will.

And then, mainstream moderate Democrats like President Biden, and it's very hard for them to get on the same page, Julie.

On issues, on policy issues?

- Well, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Look, I would say the difference between the Republicans, and the Democrats is this, the extreme wing of the Republican party the MAGA wing, the ultra MAGA wing has basically hijacked the Republican party.

There are no more Jon Bramnicks at the national level.

There just aren't.

The Jon Bramnicks at the national level have either retired or they're voting Democrat.

The reality is that the Republican party has become the MAGA party consistently.

And you see that by the reaction of almost every other presidential candidate who is not really upholding the rule of law so much as defending Donald Trump potential indictment.

On the other hand, the Democratic Party has the vast majority of the Democratic party, I believe is mainstream.

You have some extreme elements who are very loud on Twitter and on social media, but they're not really dominating the party the way that the Republicans are being dominated by these extreme MAGA zealots, and that's the difference.

The difference is that the Democrats can arguably say that they're in the mainstream of where Americans are versus the Republicans who are getting ever more extreme.

- Phil, and by the way.

Phil works with and for a very moderate Democrat, the County Executive in Essex County, Joe DiVincenzo.

Please, Phil.

- One of the dangers though, Julie, is that that left wing of our party is loud.

They're not controlling national elections.

They have an important voice in the party, but middle America hears them a lot more, and are turning away from all the Democrats.

I mean we see it you know, we're now no longer the Blue Collar party.

You know union building trade unions.

You know Blue Collar workers, police and firemen- - Police officers, firefighters.

many of them vote Republican Phil.

Talk about it.

Many of them are friends that you and I have had for many, many years we grew up with.

They vote Republican.

Please.

- And I think it's because they hear that very liberal wing of the party more than they look at the actions of Biden who has been you know, more, you know border control.

Talking about more crime issues than they want to hear, but that wing of our party seems to be what's moving the middle away from.

So it's a tough balance.

'Cause the liberal wing of our party is very important.

It's an important voice.

One of many.

- Phil's right and I've consistently said that the problem with the White House, which Joe Biden as the leader of the Democratic Party has been an awful failure to communicate.

As I've said earlier, he's got a great set of accomplishments, but he hasn't communicated them well, which is why his numbers are not where they should be because the policy.

- Hold on, Julie.

I'm sorry if interrupt Julie.

What do you mean?

If you're clear on what it is you believe in.

If you clear on the policies that you believe need to be put forth, then what the heck is the problem communicating them, those things, unless you have conflicted feelings about whether you believe those things or not or you don't really want to commit to it?

- No.

Because of course, you have to communicate it well.

Just because you do something, doesn't mean that your policies are getting across, and that you're communicating them well.

I mean the difference between Joe DiVincenzo, and I don't mean to tout Joe DiVincenzo here just because Phil is here.

But the different difference between Joe DiVincenzo and the White House is that Joe DiVincenzo does stuff as an executive and then really does a great job of talking about it and tangibly showing his voters what he does.

Right?

The White House doesn't do that as effectively.

They just pass great policies or have executive orders that are great policies, but yet don't communicate them effectively where the average American understands how this impacts them.

It's one thing to say we spent X numbers of billions of dollars or trillions of dollars on a infrastructure plan.

It's very different to say how that infrastructure plan is gonna affect me in a swing district.

Hypothetically, in a swing district for Tom Malinowski last time around in Central Jersey.

- Who lost Tom Kean who is now a new congressman.

- Or in Bucks County in Pennsylvania.

I mean, these are places that Democrats need to be competitive, and the only way to do that is to say tangibly, the reason that we passed this infrastructure plan is because X Road is now gonna be fixed that you've been complaining about driving over, and having a blown tire for the last 10 years.

Thanks to us, you don't have to do that anymore.

That's the kind of communication I'm talking about.

Joe D. by the way, Joe DiVincenzo does a great job doing that at the county level.

It's much more hard to do that obviously at the federal level, but it needs to be done, and that's how you become a good communicator.

- Phil.

- But even the building trades, Steve.

We talked about it before, there's been no president who's been better to the building trades than Joe Biden with the infrastructure bill.

With legislation that affects their pensions, and their continuing.

And I would say he would lose an election if it was just among the building trades, which, which is crazy.

And again, as to Julie's point, it's about communicating, and getting your word out.

- Before I let each one of you go.

To those Republicans and to many who argue that January 6th was a peaceful protest.

People have a right to protest.

They still say that after all this time.

Julie, you say to them?

- I say to them, put down the crack pipe, which is Fox News and OAN and Talk Radio and look at the reality because we're not even living in a reality-based world anymore.

If all you're listening to are people like Tucker Carlson who are effectively telling you that the sky's orange, when you know it's blue, you're either gonna believe your own lying eyes or you're gonna believe Tucker Carlson.

Right now, people are not believing their own lying eyes.

They're really believing.

It's not even a reality that we're living in, and that's what scares me.

We're no longer having debates based on the merits.

We're now having debates about whether the earth is flat, and that's just a whole different universe than the one that I think all of us came up with in politics, and very frightening to me.

Final words, Phil.

30 seconds.

The Capitol police officers today whose families are mourning their loss because of these peaceful protests.

So I mean, it's ridiculous.

It's something that hurts me to my core as an American that we you know, raided the capitol and and people wanna say it didn't happen.

But the future of the Democratic Party is bright.

We have young dynamic candidates all across the country, and we're gonna have a long future leading this country.

- Phil, Julie, I wanna thank you so much.

And again, I'm gonna repeat that we're gonna have a comprehensive discussion about the future of the Republican Party as well.

Phil, Julie, thanks so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thanks so much Steve.

- Thanks Steve, thanks Julie.

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.

- Talking 'bout the future of Republican Party.

Somebody who knows it well.

Jeanette Hoffman, Republican strategist, president of Marathon Public Affairs.

Good to see you, my friend.

- It's great to be here Steve, thanks for having me.

- You got it, and by the way, this is our normal, I remember them, the studio, the series I did with Jacqui Tricarico, this is where I was, we decided to tape here.

Lemme ask you something.

This library is filled with all kinds of books.

A lot of them are about Donald Trump, because I'm fascinated by his presidency, and I'm fascinated by his role in American politics.

Is the Republican Party, quote, the party of Donald Trump in 2023, and by the way, we're taping on the 21st of March, we don't know exactly how things are gonna play out in New York with the district attorney in Manhattan, let's just say that.

Please Jeanette, or in Georgia.

Go ahead.

- Yeah, I mean listen, he is an interesting guy.

He's a big figure in the Republican Party.

He dominates the headlines as we speak, right, everyone wants to know what's gonna happen to him, he's playing into the media's hands for sure.

He is an expert at communications, like him or not, right?

I don't think he is the future of the Republican Party, Steve.

I think his time has passed.

I think timing is everything in politics right now, and I think the American people are tired of the rollercoaster that is Donald Trump.

I think they're tired of the Biden administration as well, but I think they want their lives to go back to normal.

I think, you know, after COVID, people just wanna work, they wanna, you know, be free of mandates, they want their economy to get back on track, they're tired of this crazy inflation, they're tired of paying $8 for a dozen eggs, they're tired of crazy energy costs, and I think they're tired of just the rollercoaster, up and down politics that you get with Donald Trump.

- Yeah, we'll talk about President Biden in a second because I asked the Democrats to talk a little bit about their problems with the Republicans so I wanna ask you that as well, but I'm curious about this.

(Jeanette laughs) The Republican Party that you believe in, that you've been a part of, I believe your entire life and you're a very respected Republican strategist, been involved in a lot of campaigns.

The key issues, policy issues that the Republican Party that you believe in, that they stand for, what are they?

- It's freedom, it's opportunities, less mandates on government, the opportunity to be an entrepreneur, the-- - Less mandates on, from government?

- Yes, I'm sorry, less mandates from government on businesses.

- Hold on Jeanette, I gotta stop you right there.

Does that include less regulation with regional banks?

- Of course it does.

- With regional?

- Well, all right, well listen, that was a failure of the bank and the board of directors there, Steve.

I don't know what was going on with that bank.

- Okay, you're separating that from Dodd-Frank.

You're separating that from federal regulation.

You're separating that from the role of the Fed.

You're saying it was that bank, even though there're couple other banks as well, and again, we're taping on the 21st of March, let's hope that's the way it stays.

You don't believe that's a government-- - I don't wanna get into particular banking issues, but in general, I think businesses need less regulation, not more.

I don't think businesses should be strangled by red tape.

I think lower taxes helps everybody.

I think New Jersey has a huge affordability problem, and I think higher property taxes are strangling our residents.

A lot of people can't afford to live here anymore, Steve.

- What's your biggest beef as it relates to that with Democratic Governor Phil Murphy?

- It's frustrating, I mean he's been governor for how many years now?

This was his fifth or sixth budget that he's proposed?

He's increased spending by 52, 53% and he's done nothing to make New Jersey more affordable.

I live in a school district that's gonna get their school funding cut.

Few hundred school districts are gonna get their school funding cut.

You know what that's gonna, it's gonna raise property taxes.

So you know, my-- - So the Governor has the, sorry for interrupting, Jeanette, the governor will say, and as he said to me in several interviews, "We got the ANCHOR property tax program "that provides property tax relief for certain people," I'm not sure if you fall into that category.

But what's your-- - Certain people, no, I don't.

- What's that?

- No, I don't belong to that category, and a lot of my neighbors don't, and it's a gimmick, Steve, it's not reforming property taxes and they continue to escalate.

The average property tax bill for New Jersey homeowners in the state is now $9,000, the highest in history.

So Governor Murphy's doing nothing to reform property taxes.

- But what would the Republicans do?

Say the Republicans took control of the governorship in 2025, took control of the legislature, one or both houses, what would be dramatically different?

The first thing they would do is reform that whole school funding formula, which is antiquated, right?

So some districts get a ton of money, like Jersey City.

Jersey City is doing very well right now, they should not be an Abbott district, and some more rural, suburban districts, they get hardly anything.

So you gotta switch that up.

You gotta start there.

You gotta start from the very beginning with the school funding formula.

And there, you know, there's been other ways, Governor Christie, you know, like him or not, he worked with Senate president, he got a 2.0 cap.

That helped a little bit, but you have to go further.

- 2.0, one second, explain to people what that cap means.

- That means that municipal spending can only rise to 2%.

So the, you had to work within your municipal budgets in towns to keep that budget within 2%, so property taxes really couldn't escalate that much.

Really, it was a small reform but it did something, so property tax bills couldn't escalate as quickly as they were rising.

- Jeanette, there're times that, I'm gonna, I wanna ask you about this, because I asked the Democrats a little bit about media, so I wanna ask you as well.

You're a media professional.

You've been a commentator for a long time, a lot of different places, you've done this work and you've been with us many times.

The role of Fox News to provide intentionally misleading disinformation regarding the 2020 presidential election in the aftermath of it, that they knew was incorrect, but in sworn testimony in the case involving of Dominion voting machines, they had to tell the truth.

- Yeah.

- And in fact, the chairman of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, made it clear that he knew they weren't telling the truth, but it's been argued that they were doing that because they didn't wanna piss off or peeve their viewers so you told 'em, I mean, you know the rest, I mean, what about that?

- Yeah, it's really upsetting to me, Steve.

You know, I grew up in a time and I think you grew up in a time where, you know, we watched the news and we took those journalists' word as facts, right, and everything was fact-checked and everything we believed was correct, and then, you know, you have these cable channels that are now infotainment, right?

It's not there for the news.

They say so themselves.

They're an entertainment channel, that these shows are there for entertainment, and you know, if you looked at Tucker Carlson's text messages, they said, "Look, our stocks are plummeting."

I mean, that's what they're there for, - You mean Fox News, Fox News.

- To make money.

- They also said that Donald Trump, I think he called, I said I'm not, I don't even wanna go into the details, but did not respect, didn't like him, thought he was an idiot, blah, blah, blah, but on the air, said something very different.

Now, here's my question.

Do you just throw CNN, MSNBC, those of us in public broadcast, we're all in the same lot in this?

Or do you separate Fox News and Newsmax and some others, let's say Fox News for just now, for engaging in intentional disinformation?

Is there a difference?

- Well that's, I mean, we saw the transcripts, right?

I mean we saw the testimony.

That was, you can't deny it, it's intentional.

I mean, I do think though that, you know, some on the left like MSNBC, they engage in, you know, I can't say it is to this extent because there's nothing that proves that, but I do think that they speak, everyone speaks in an echo chamber.

No one speaks to the middle.

No one speaks to the American people like they used to.

You know, Fox News speaks to the right, MSNBC speaks to the left, and I think that's another reason why this country is so divided, Steve, because no one is speaking to everyone in the middle, and independent voters, you know, it's hard for them to get their information from these cable channels when they're just echo chambers.

- They're complicated, by the way, we try to do that which is why we're looking at the current state and the future of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and I often tell people we have no horse in the race.

It's not a slogan, it's the truth.

We don't.

The horse we have is an honest discourse.

That being said, I'll complicate it.

The role of social media in the Republican Party/our representative democracy.

How dangerous?

- Well, I'll say there's pros and cons.

I mean, the good thing about social media for campaigns is candidates can talk directly to voters.

It's really a great channel to get voters engaged, to spread information, if you're, and someone like a candidate in a place like New Jersey, where it's really class-prohibitive to be on TV airways, you can get a digital marketing campaign very inexpensively and talk to voters on Facebook and Twitter.

- Where does it get dangerous politically?

- When there's just major disinformation out there, Steve, and you know it to be the case.

There's a lot of disinformation that spreads very quickly and things can go viral, and I mean, we look at January 6th.

- It had a lot to do with January 6th.

Yeah.

January 6th was fueled, - That's a perfect, the perfect example.

- I'm sorry for interrupting, there's a little bit of a delay, it was fueled by social media, was it not?

- Absolutely, and that's where things get dangerous, and the disinformation about the election results I think really spread very quickly over social media.

- Before I let you go, Jeanette, for you, for a strong, moderate Republican in New Jersey, what degree do you believe there's a place for you in this party, in your party?

- Listen, I think the Republican Party is strong.

I was a Republican before Donald Trump was a Republican, I remind people.

(both laugh) He was a Democrat Steve, he was one of you guys.

(laughs) But.

- No, I have no horse in the race.

- Not you, I'm sorry.

- Go ahead.

- He was a Democrat, and I'll say, the New Jersey Republican Party is alive and well.

Republicans picked up seven seats in the state legislature in 2021, a lot of them were women.

There are more Republican women in the New Jersey Assembly Caucus today than ever before, and I think there's a great new Republican districted map for New Jersey, and I think we're gonna pick up more seats, because we talk about here in New Jersey the issues that matter to people, school funding, property taxes, crime, reform, so all of those issues matter.

When we talk about affordability, when we talk about reforming crime and our schools and things like that, that's when Republicans win because we're just better on those messages.

- That's Jeanette Hoffman, Republican strategist, President at Marathon Public Affairs.

Thank you Jeanette.

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

- Thanks for watching us.

I'm Steve Adubato.

See you next time.

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

Funding has been provided by Holy Name.

Seton Hall University.

PSE&G, RWJBarnabas Health.

NJM Insurance Group.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

Wells Fargo.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com.

And by New Jersey Globe.

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