- [Announcer] Major funding for "Reporters Roundtable with David Cruz" is provided by RWJ Barnabas Health.

Let's be healthy together.

NJM Insurance Group.

Serving the insurance needs of New Jersey residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

Promotional support provided by "New Jersey Business Magazine," the magazine of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

Reporting to executive and legislative leaders in all 21 counties of the Garden State since 1954.

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[groovy upbeat music] [groovy upbeat music continues] - Lawmakers get set for summer.

Are they gearing up for a fall showdown?

Hi everybody, it's "Reporter's Roundtable."

I'm David Cruz.

We are in seasonal recap mode with our panel of experts, including Colleen O'Dea.

She's the senior writer and projects editor for "NJ Spotlight News."

Terence McDonald is the editor for "New Jersey Monitor."

And Charles Stile is the political columnist for the record "USA Today Network."

We'll get to the panel in just a few minutes but we begin today with the mid-year look at where we are in our politics, government, and the news in general.

Getting us started is the Director of the Rebovich Institute for NJ Politics at Rider University, Micah Rasmussen.

Micah, good to see you, man.

Welcome.

- Thanks for having me, David.

- So we're approaching the end of the school year, as it were.

Let's look at the year so far as we head into the summer and prepare for the fall.

We heard a little bit of panic from the governor and other state democratic leaders at their meeting a couple weeks ago.

Were they trying to put some fire under some butts or do they have good reason to be worried?

- I think you hit it on the head.

They want all hands on deck.

They realize that the governor won his race two years ago by a little better than three points.

They know this is the governor's last midterm year in the last referendum on his years in office.

And they know this is a low turnout election.

Anything could happened in a low turnout election.

So I think they're sounding the alarm, not necessarily because they see some urgency coming on the horizon, but because they don't want complacency to set in.

And that's what can happen in an off-off year election if you're not paying attention.

- What can we take away from these recent primaries that Democrats should be worried about and or Republicans should be worried about?

- Republicans in New Jersey are energized by their primaries.

They have a division in the party over the heart and the soul and the future of the party, to be sure, between movement conservatives and regular conservatives and moderates.

They are constantly struggling over who's gonna be the heart and the soul of the party.

But it gives them energy.

They have candidates who run.

All sides participate, right?

And, you know, you've got Bill Spadea coming out of the woodwork and taking sides in these primaries and he's a serious contender, I think somebody who has to be taking seriously, odd as it is maybe to say that, for the gubernatorial nomination in two years.

So they are energized by their differences.

Democrats sort of tried to put them away and try to keep them at bay and try to get the organization to say, "Here is our best foot forward.

Here's who we think has the best chance in the fall."

They try to tie things up in a nice bow and square them away.

So they were able to do that for the most part, with the exception of that Codey Gill race.

The Republicans had, you know, some disputes going on in northwest New Jersey and southwest New Jersey.

- We keep hearing about Democrats moving to the right, tougher on crime, rowdy teenagers, redefining assault on a police officer.

Is this something that voters have really been clamoring for?

- So I think it reflects the cautious nature of legislative Democrats who are risk averse.

You asked me a couple seconds ago about how Democrats may be responding to the election in general.

I think this is another reflection of what they see coming down the pike.

They don't want, you know, crime to be on, blamed on, pinned on them.

They don't want high taxes to be pinned on them.

So these are defensive moves.

These are not necessarily reflections of the electorate at large.

This is, I think, trying to inoculate themselves against anything that might bubble up between now and November.

- And the tax cutting, that sunset of the corporate business tax surcharge, this tax cut that's supposedly not a tax cut on overseas profits for big corporations, stay NJ.

I mean, it looks like they're trying to be Republicans.

- Yeah, so it's interesting because we know that the property tax has been an ongoing issue in New Jersey for the last 50 years and beyond.

It's been the most hated tax in New Jersey.

There has been consensus around providing relief from it to the extent that the state can, wrote checks in the '70s, Brendan Byrne with the homestead rebate.

That was all well and good.

Now Trenton seems to have maybe gotten past that or there's some challenge to that, the idea that it's not reducing, providing property tax relief is not always progressive.

It can be regressive.

And so I think it's an attempt to move the debate beyond where it's been, just a knee jerk give relief to property taxpayers as we've seen in the past.

- So we've got a twice indicted president, twice impeached, seemingly surging as a result of those things.

And we have our former governor, Chris Christie, now jumped into the race.

He's the only one who seems to be really out there loudly talking about Trump in a negative way.

Is it gonna help him get above one, two percent, which he seems to be at?

- No, it's not.

He is doing big truth telling in this race.

Big impact.

He's saying the things that the party, he thinks the party needs to say and needs to confront and needs to reckon with.

Look, in New Jersey, we know that Trump is going to be a big albatross.

In 2020 he lost by three quarters of a million votes and that was before the indictments.

That was before the crime spree.

That was before the insurrection.

That was before the documents being altered, right?

So all of that has gone on since then.

It's not gonna make him more palatable to New Jersey voters.

So Chris Christie's doing what he thinks he has to do, but that also is not going to endear him to Republicans.

Even if it somehow works and it forces the party to come to terms with Trump, it doesn't look like that's gonna help him.

Republicans are gonna be more likely to take that out on him.

- So let's look back at the year in the couple minutes we have.

You got a couple of stories that either went under the radar or on the other hand are still resonating?

- So policy-wise, I think that the changes that we're seeing from the federal courts to our gun laws are really flying under the radar screen.

The New Jersey-ians don't really know that there are big changes coming in the way that we live our lives.

We go to the grocery store now and we don't have to worry about whether or not somebody next to us or in the next lane of traffic is carrying a gun.

Those changes are coming.

The courts have made it very clear, up to and including the Supreme Court, have made it very clear that those changes are coming, that our laws are not gonna survive federal court scrutiny in this day and age with the Bruin Standard that the court has set.

And people don't really understand that those changes are coming but they are big changes that are coming in spite of the state's best efforts to stave those off.

- What about Norcross leaving politics and the impact of that, or I should put leaving politics in quotes.

- Whether, right, yeah.

Whether, right?

Not if.

- Right.

- So, yeah.

The continued realignment of the Democratic Party in New Jersey away from South Jersey.

Look, this has been a slow motion story over the course of the last several years.

It continues to unfold.

We don't know what it's gonna mean in terms of the legislative races this year.

Is he gonna be all in for Burzichelli in the third?

Is he gonna be all in for Moriarty in the fourth?

But what we do know as a state party is that the Democrats are relying less and less on South Jersey for their majorities, both electorally and legislatively.

And it is going to make their majorities in the state smaller as a result of writing off that region and not working with that region.

So either way, it's a big impact politically.

- I know it's early, 2025 is, you know, still a ways away, but we've already got maneuvering, you mentioned one guy already, for the governor's race.

You've got Ciattarelli, Fulop, Baraka, Sherrill's name keeps coming up, Josh Gottheimer on the democratic side, not to mention the guys on the Republican side.

What can you tell us about where that race or those races are right now?

- So I think the big story for this season that we've seen is that Steve Phillip got a huge jump out of the gate and he's got mayor supporting the mayor every week that are coming out.

He's got a steady drum beat going and it's not a prohibited lead that he's got at this point as the only one in, but it's going to force the other candidates to play catch up.

I think it's been very smart, it's been something that's agitated the rest of the party that's not behind him, but he's almost not even working with the party organizations.

It's not that he's not, of course, especially in Hudson.

But he is sort of going around them to get these mayor supports and to line up this early support and this early drum beat that he's got going.

I think it's been incredibly effective for him and it makes him the guy to beat at this stage of the race.

But you're right, the Democrats have a large field of potentially attractive candidates.

You know, some of them like Mikie Sherrill if something should happen to Menendez, that's something we haven't talked about in terms of another big story, are we gonna return to New Jersey corruption, you know, in the months and the years to come?

Is that gonna be a drum beat?

Is that gonna be part of the picture?

And if it does, is she somebody who could step in and fill that Senate seat if she raises her statewide profile or maybe somebody else's in that gubernatorial field?

- Yeah, all right, Micah Rasmussen, good to see you, man.

Thanks for always being a good guest.

- Have a good summer.

- All right, panel, Colleen, Terrance, Charlie, good to see you all.

Let's start with this Chris Christie guy.

I feel like he's already gotten more attention this year than he did when he ran in 2016.

No, Colleen?

- Yeah, well, I mean, I think at first he got some attention in 2016, but definitely at this point he has.

I mean, the "CNN Town Hall" that he had, he was just ripping into Trump.

I think, you know, Micah said he's kind of speaking truth to power and that is something that's getting him an awful lot of headlines because there aren't many Republicans who are willing to go out on a limb and talk like that about Trump.

- Because the calculus right now is still you can't attract, you can't attack Trump yet, right?

- Right.

- All right.

Let's go to some Christie sound.

This came up at this "CNN Town Hall" but this is from his announcement in New Hampshire.

Someone asked him what his biggest regret was.

Let's listen and come back.

- The biggest mistake I made in public life was that I put a few people into a position of authority at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who went on a frolicking detour to divert traffic off the George Washington Bridge without telling me, without me knowing anything about it.

They used my power and my authority to play a fraternity prank and it cost me a lot.

- Shocked, frolicking detour.

Charlie, you were up there in New Hampshire a couple weeks ago.

Anybody still talking about Bridgegate?

And does that version settle it for those who do?

- First of all, I don't think people are talking about it but it's baked into the Christie narrative as he goes forward.

If he's going to catch fire, he's gonna have to come up with a narrative and a spin to explain that.

And so he's doing some little preemptive work on that.

I think that's a long way off though.

I think people are not yet assessing Christie on his past.

They're listening to him now on what he says about Trump and the Trump future.

And if he succeeds, if he succeeds at getting traction, which I still think is a very long way off, then he's, you know, he's gonna need to have this Bridgegate answer in his pocket.

And I think we can all sort through that and challenge it, parts of it, very aggressively when the time comes.

- Yeah.

Terrence, what's the biggest objection you hear about Christie other than just, "I hate that S.O.B?"

- Biggest objection from who?

- [David] People that you talk to out there.

[Terrance chuckles] - Are you talking about- - Or are you suggesting that nobody's talking about him?

- No, but I mean, I think if we're talking about Republicans, it's that he's super hard on Trump and most Republicans love Trump.

So Republicans don't like him because he's trashing Trump, especially at this time when they think Trump needs, I think I saw somebody say, somebody say, I think it was the Ohio Senator say that everybody, all the Republicans should drop out of the race right now while this is going on with Trump.

If you're talking to Democrats, they don't trust him either because he was the first one to jump on the Trump train in 2016.

So I'm sort of baffled by the strategy here.

- And also if you listen to Christie at his "Town Hall" the other night, he's basically taking a moderate center right position on policy.

So if he thinks he's gonna be able to track these Trump voters, he's not offering them Trump without chaos, Trump policy without chaos.

He's offering pretty much center right establishment, moderate Republican policy.

And right now I don't think the base wants to, finds that attractive.

So that's why I think it's a long way off.

I think it's a long shot and I'm being generous.

- Have the Republicans lost that moderate feeling?

And are they, have they been overrun by, you know, the severe right?

Or do just moderate voters not vote right now?

- I'm starting to wonder whether the MAGA rights are extreme to hard line conservatives have hijacked the party.

I do.

- Yeah.

Colleen, I guess we'll start to see things heat up after the fall elections.

But you've got Ciatterelli, Testa, Bramnick.

that's like three different GOP rooms right there.

And we're not even mentioning the performative conservatives who wanna ban the books and marginalize everybody they don't understand.

What's that battle gonna be like?

- Yeah, that'll certainly show us what's happened to the GOP in New Jersey.

You've got this whole range of people.

You didn't mention Bill Spadea which I think, you know, he's another one out there, right, who is looking to get in the race.

You do have a range of folks and I think we have seen over the last couple years or since Trump came to power, this kind of right move amongst Republicans in New Jersey.

But certainly it's very strong down in the South.

I'm not sure it's as strong in parts of the North.

I mean, look at Bramnick, he keeps getting elected.

Ciatterelli was the nominee, although just barely, last time.

So I think that race is gonna be what tells us where the New Jersey Republican party is.

- Terrence, what about Trump though?

At some point they're gonna have to take a stand on him either way, no?

That's gonna separate the Bramnicks from the Testa's, as much as that sounds like a medical procedure.

We're gonna have to separate the Bramnicks from the Testa's.

But you know what I'm saying?

- We're talking about 2025 then?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I don't know.

The thing is like, it's so unpredictable.

We'll have no idea what's going on with Donald Trump a year from now.

We might not have even predicted six months ago where we are right now.

So yeah, some of them will have to take a stand on Trump but I think they already have, and it hurts for some people, but it doesn't hurt for others who are in districts where people like Trump.

So them not wading into this argument doesn't really hurt them at the polls.

- Exactly.

- Charlie, what about these Democrats?

They're in for a potentially lively primary.

I mean Sherrill, Josh Gottheimer, Ras Baraka, Steve Fulop, Sweeney.

- Absolutely.

I do think that's gonna be a free for all.

And they're also facing history.

I mean, usually New Jersey voters have picked the other party after a two term governor.

And so, and you know, they tend to, when it comes to governor, they tend to look for change in the administration of the uber City Hall, known as the State House.

So that's another thing that's going to overhang this whole thing.

- Yeah, they'll say that this is the first time a Democrat got reelected for governor since the stone age.

- The dawn of time, yeah.

- Yeah.

So, all right, let's take a look at some of the news of the year so far and go around the table here.

Any stories that either flew under the radar or are still resonating or should be?

Colleen, let's start with you.

- You know, one I think, and certainly it is something that's gotten coverage and we've covered, is the judge shortage.

You know, during the, I know what the Murphy Administration says, that they're doing all they can to put judges on, but we still have about 60 open judgeships in the state and we had the recent historic high under the Murphy Administration.

And this is just something that goes and on for year after year after year.

It has real impacts on people, people who can't get divorces.

You've got people, because of bail reform, who are now sitting in jail, can't get bail, can't get out of jail waiting for a trial.

We're supposed to have a speedy trial system.

Speedy being two years.

I'm not sure anyone would call that speedy.

But they're a real life impact.

And I just, I don't think that's got enough coverage and, I mean, I don't think we can write enough stories about it.

- Yeah.

Terrence, what do you got?

- I think one of the bigger stories this year was what the legislature did with the Election Law Enforcement Commission.

It didn't really fly under the radar with the media 'cause we all covered it a lot.

But I think with a normal person, it didn't.

And I think what we are gonna start to see is, because they decided that the Election Law Enforcement Commission should be kneecapped and because they, meaning lawmakers, believe that they should be raising a ton more money, we're just gonna start seeing the state get flooded with campaign cash and I think that's when we're gonna start to see some sort of like normal people start to care about it who may not have been paying attention before because it's just gonna make campaigns more expensive and uglier and just bother voters with campaign flyers and campaign ads that they already are sick of.

- Right, because, you know, putting more money into the system certainly corresponds with the amount of ads that we're gonna get on the TV, on the radio, in our Instagram feeds, et cetera, right?

- [Terrence] For sure, for sure.

And it's gonna fatten the campaign accounts of folks like the senate president or the assembly speaker who already have a ton of money and they don't even need to spend it.

- [David] Yeah.

Charlie, you wanna, what do you got?

- Well, I think the distribution of pandemic aid was largely resembled end of budget court distribution mostly to democratic towns, democratic projects.

And it's not clear whether there was any kind of evaluation or assessment of why one project in a democratic town was actually a higher priority than another town.

It just looks like spoil system for money that was sent here to repair the economy and restore the state after a catastrophe.

And I don't think it, I think it was a real shame the way that money is spent.

And, this is my pet peeve, sending several million dollars for cage matches at the Prudential Center.

I don't know what that has to do with the pandemic.

I know, I know what you're gonna say, David.

It's all about the economy and building economy but it seemed like the Prudential Center was doing pretty good without that $3 million bonus from pandemic aid.

- Does it remind you a little bit or a lot like the aftermath of Sandy with all those kind of programs and funding there?

- There's some similarities, definitely.

You know, and I can't remember, recite those from chapter and verse, but certainly the favored got, there was some favor that got to wet their beak over others.

- Yeah.

All right, what about Norcross leaving politics?

And, not that Sue Altman has anything to do with Norcross, but Sue Altman jumping into politics.

Terrence, what do you think?

Is Norcross gone and is Sue Altman the future of the progressive Democratic party in New Jersey?

Those are two separate questions.

[Terrence chuckles] - One is, no, he's not gone.

I don't believe that.

And two, I don't know if she's the face of the progressive wing of the party moving forward.

Again, I'm sort of in the minority in the sort of media crowd in that I'm super not interested in races that are so far away, and hers is like a year away.

But so much can happen between now and then that it's just, I think we'll probably have a better idea when we get to like February or March, a couple of months before that primary and not a year before.

- Charlie, what about that Norcross and Altman?

- Well on Norcross, I just, you don't retire from politics.

Party bosses don't retire.

This isn't the civil service, you know?

So I think he'll be kind of like this, you know, this political advisor operative behind the scenes emeritus, if you will.

But I don't think he's, you know, suddenly going to a golf course and disappearing.

For Sue Altman, I think the question for her is whether the party felt that there are others in the party feel that she's really gonna be the appropriate standard bearer in a district that's leaned a little more red.

I think there's other people who are gonna be popping out of the woodwork to grab that brass ring of nomination.

- Colleen, final thoughts from you?

- Yeah, I agree with Charlie.

I mean, this district is now significantly redder than it was.

It now has more Republican registrants than Democrats.

So, I mean, I think it's gonna be hard from her.

But one question that I wanna ask is where does Tom Kean stand on Donald Trump?

I think it won't matter as much for Jeff Van Drew or Chris Smith, but I think that'll be an interesting question for the next election.

- All right, that's "Roundtable" for this week, for the season actually.

Charlie, Colleen, Terrence, thanks for being the A team and for taking time to shoot the shizzel with us all year.

We'll see you out there.

And to all of you who watch this show regularly, thank you for being a smart audience and for keeping us honest, even when we're being honest.

We appreciate the support.

So we're off for the summer.

You can keep in touch with us on Twitter @roundtableNJ and catch up on the news every day when you subscribe to the YouTube channel.

I'm David Cruz.

From our producer, Jen Eckert, associate producer Brendan Smyth, director Elvin Badger, and the entire team over here at Gateway Center in downtown Newark, have a great summer.

Thanks for watching.

- [Announcer] Major funding for "Reporters Roundtable with David Cruz" is provided by RWJ Barnabas Health.

Let's be healthy together.

NJM Insurance Group.

Serving the insurance needs of New Jersey residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

Promotional support provided by "New Jersey Business Magazine," the magazine of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

Reporting to executive and legislative leaders in all 21 counties of the Garden State since 1954.

And by Politico's "New Jersey Playbook," a topical newsletter on Garden State politics, online at politico.com.

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