[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - 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.

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