>> major funding for Reporters Roundtable is funded by RWJBarnabas health.

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Educating New Jersey leaders, partnering with New Jersey businesses, transforming New Jersey's future.

♪ David: as they gather for their big weekend confab in Atlantic City, New Jersey Republicans are embracing these Trumpy times.

Here's our panel today.

Senior writer and projects editor for NJ Spotlight News.

Statehouse reporter for NJ advanced media.

News director for WB GL jazz 88.

We hear from the panel in just a few minutes.

Let's begin today on the weekend of the Republican leadership Summit with the discussion of the state through the eyes of the Republican legislative leadership.

The Republican leader in the Senate is Anthony Bucha who joins us now.

>> could to see you.

How are you?

David: doing OK.

I want to talk about the Summit.

That's a big thing with you guys.

But let's talk about a couple other things beforehand.

I guess we have to start with the president.

How's the president doing, in your mind?

it's been a couple of months now.

>> whether you agree with his policies are not, the president is doing exactly what he told this country he was going to do.

You've got to give him credit for that.

He ran on those issues.

He assumed office and hit the ground running.

That's a good thing for the country.

A majority of people voted for him.

That's what everybody wanted her get he's delivering exactly what he promised.

David: no doubt about that.

You have to give him credit for doing what he said he would do.

If you didn't vote for him and you thought he's doing something that's a surprise, I think the joke is on you because he said what he was going to do.

Now he's doing it.

Some of those things include, he ignores judges orders.

He wants to impeach judges that he doesn't agree with.

All of those things including the abolishment this week of the Department of Education are all the things that he's doing good for Jersey?

>> the president says a lot of things.

He's not a conventional president.

But you know, as many people have said, it's part of the art of the deal for him.

He pushes a lot of buttons but he gets people to the table and he gets people thinking.

That's what you want.

That's what you want from the president.

You want to shake things up a little bit.

I think he's doing that.

Whether you agree with everything he says or everything he does, that's another story.

Let me tell you, he tells it like it is.

That's not like the regular elected official that you see these days.

This guy speaks from his heart.

He says it like it is.

David: I hear that.

But the question is, is it all good for Jersey?

>> look, I think the things that are going to be good for Jersey we will certainly capitalize on.

We are dealing with -- right now which is going to require emergency funding from the federal government.

I know Congressman Kane has been working really hard to get that funding for us.

Working with the governor, all levels of government working together to get it.

So that will be a good thing when that money is delivered.

Where he is cutting some things, we have to look at where those cuts are coming from.

Now, people are saying that maybe the shifting of the funding from running the federal Department of education to New Jersey, maybe the money will be better spent.

We will see.

David: speaking of money, let's talk about the budget.

$58 billion.

1.5 billion in new taxes.

$2 billion over what they are taking in.

Republicans say it's a mess.

How do you fix it?

>> look, I think we have to get back to the basics here.

New Jersey for the last eight years has spent more than it takes and.

You just can't survive when you do that.

That's why we have these huge structural deficits.

That's why the governor continues to raise taxes on folks that are living paycheck-to-paycheck.

This budget has $2 billion in taxes.

Taxing everything.

Bowling was only something that a middle-class family could go take the kids to the bowling alley and enjoy without breaking your pocketbooks.

Now it's going to be taxed.

I think it's misguided.

I think the people in New Jersey have had enough of this tax and spend governor.

David: the Democrats are going to own this because Republicans, as a minority party, you can only raise your fist at them but you won't be able to have much of an impact, right?

>> what you are seeing now is a result of eight years of far left progressive policies that this party has produced.

Utility bills this summer are going to go up 20%.

That's another essential that families can't live without.

It will be a crushing blow to those folks.

But again, let's make New Jersey into California or the East Coast.

Those policies now are coming to fruition.

People are going to begin to feel it, see it.

I think there's going to be a big push back.

David: you talked about electricity prices going up.

They've already gonna significantly.

There's a big spike coming just before the primaries by the way.

How did we get to this point?

don't tell me that it's the Democrats.

Because it's been a while.

There's plenty of blame to go around.

Is there something we can point to to say, if this didn't happen , we wouldn't have this spike in electric prices.

>> I think New Jersey is not producing enough energy.

Right?

you have to go back and start allowing the use of clean natural gas.

You have to look for nuclear energy.

The complete electrification of the state by 2035 is misguided.

We just don't have the capability of doing that.

You can't add EV's.

You can't add what's going to be required, the energy that's going to be required for a I, and think that New Jersey can keep up with it.

PGM has been saying for years that New Jersey doesn't produce enough energy.

Relying solely on a nubile -- renewable energy at a certain date is creating this problem.

You have to have a balanced portfolio.

You have to allow for natural gas.

You have to provide for some nuclear and some renewable energy.

But it needs to be a balanced approach.

Until we get that balanced approach, you will continue to see utility rates climb.

David: about a minute left for this discussion.

You guys are feeling pretty good.

I you guys I mean Republicans.

Hoping to flip the assembly in the fall.

This weekend you have your big summit.

Tell me a little bit about that.

>> look, we've got a great event coming up in Atlantic City.

Great speakers.

People will talk about issues and policies and campaigns.

I think that the Republican party is in a great position coming into this election.

David: what's it going -- what are the issues that you will ride to victory in the fall?

affordability?

>> I think affordability is clearly going to be one of the issues here in New Jersey.

Look at electric rates.

That will be hitting people's pocketbooks rate in the middle of summer.

There's a whole host of things that I think are going to play in our favor.

Again, people are going to be reminded that this one-party rule without checks and balances, whether it's in the legislature or in the front office, is not good for anybody.

You need to have a balanced approach to government to bring the policies closer to the center.

My position I think, center-right is about where most people are today.

I think in order to do that, you have to have balanced government.

David: alright.

May be a perfect storm brewing.

Anthony Boko, minority leader in the Senate, good to see you.

Have a great weekend.

>> could to see you.

Thanks.

David: all right, panel.

Good to see you all.

Welcome.

I want to start with President Trump.

You get a sense of some reluctance on the part of the Republican establishment to not embrace the president to tightly .

The line seems to be always, he's doing what he said he was going to do.

Which is true.

Meanwhile, Republican candidates for governor are racing to embrace him.

What's the Trump calculus at this moment?

>> I think it's exactly what you said.

Certainly we just heard that from Senator Bucha, in terms of saying very cautiously, I think the president is doing what he said he was going to do although I don't think he ever said he was going to allow someone who doesn't even have a position in the government to go in and take a chainsaw to jobs.

But that said, you now I think that the problem that Democrats -- Republicans in New Jersey have remains that the states Republican Party is divided.

It may be more Maga then it was in the past.

You need that to get through the primary.

But when you get to the general election, I don't think that will play as well.

So Republicans are walking a tight rope to try to be MAGA for their base but not too much for the general election.

David: those people who voted for Trump in 2024, Biden in 2020, are we seeing anybody saying, I wish I had a do over?

>> I haven't read into that many people who had what you would call buyers remorse.

What you do run into is, it said it all in your interview.

It seems to me that the Senator really did have trouble answering specific questions about whether or not he thought the policies were good for New Jersey.

Right?

whether or not he thought the dismantling of the Department of Education affects New Jersey in a good way and how that also affects the budget talks that we are going to have.

So when you look at the political ecosystem, it would appear that everyone definitely on the Republican side embraces the populist aspect of what's going on.

When you start talking about details, even within the Republican Party there seems to be very few New Jersey Republicans that want to embrace the details of what's going on, especially at the intersection of the budget that's being negotiated right now.

David: he defies court orders.

He calls for impeachment of judges who disagree with him.

I heard this morning one think tank say that if things keep going the way they're going now, democracy is not going to last six months.

Is not too alarmist?

>> the thing that I really look at, what President Trump has done so far, I think we really need to see what will pay off and what won't.

I think it's too early to really know if his policies, especially with the elimination of the Department of Education, how will that impact the Garden State?

I don't think we really know at this point.

A lot of people are going to say , especially the Democrats, that it's not going to help.

It's all too early.

I think we are at a wait and see to see if the policies that he's put in place already will impact New Jersey and will impact all of us in a positive or negative way.

Just to say because President Trump is behind it, I don't think it necessarily means that it's not going to be effective.

But we really need to dig into some of the details.

I agree because I think that's one of the reasons why the Republican lawmakers are hesitant to get behind everything.

I don't think they know for sure if it's going to work.

So I think we are in a holding pattern right now.

Everything happened so fast with the Trump administration.

In just two short term in office, maybe we need to pull back a little bit before we just make comments about whether this will be successful or not.

David: it's only been two months.

Good point.

Let's get to the cost of energy which is on everyone's mind now.

I don't even mean how much it costs for electricity.

I'm talking about how much it's going to cost politically.

Republicans have been cornering the market on outrage.

With another spike that's scheduled to hit just before the primaries, who will pay the price for this?

>> you have a really good point about this hitting before the primaries.

So we could certainly impact I would think adding incumbents who are running for reelection.

Remember, the primary, we will see Republicans versus Republicans, Democrats versus Democrats.

We could see some sort of a hit there for incumbents.

But I'm not sure that the typical primary voter really is that well-versed.

The typical voter in general, who to place blame.

Certainly people are going to the polls and they are unhappy.

They are always going to look to go to vote against an incumbent.

David: good point.

I don't know how voters can make both parties pay for this.

But this is the kind of pocketbook issue all the politicians say voters want them to be taken care of.

Yet here they are.

Democratic lawmakers have a hearing scheduled for next Friday.

But our Republicans right now occupying the high ground on this issue?

>> well, Republicans are occupying the high ground in the White House.

They are occupying the high ground and the federal government.

That does basically filter down to a stronger negotiating hand even if they are not occupying the high ground statistically in the state house.

Because at the end of the day, you have energy costs but a lot of those energy costs can also be tied up with grants that may or may not be given by the federal government.

What New Jersey Democrats have struggled to explain over the years to their caucuses of color, whether you are talking about the Black caucus or Latino caucus, what they've had trouble explaining to their constituents is marrying the increased taxes with the increased wealth inequality that many of those demographics are also facing.

It's becoming an increasingly hard-sell to those demographics to raise those taxes when the wealth inequality level is also not changing at an appreciable rate.

2 budgets -- David: budget season began this week.

Six hour session of the assembly budget committee to start things off this week.

The big fear amongst lawmakers is cuts to federal programs, especially Medicaid.

That would be a potential budget buster, big cut to Medicaid, wouldn't it?

>> it would.

I love your piece covering the opening session of the budget.

You covered it all.

You had so many people with concerns.

I thought one of the big questions that came up, maybe not necessarily with Medicaid, would be the fact that with all these taxes continuing, what a new concept in New Jersey.

More taxes.

We've never face that before.

Every single year, we face the possibility that it's getting more and more disaster live in the Garden State.

Who takes the blame for it?

it depends on who you talk to.

But when it comes to Medicaid, that would be very difficult for New Jersey.

We talk to the governor every month on our show.

He says that the budget is what we need.

If you listen to Anthony Bucha and the rest of the Republicans, they say enough with the taxes.

As far as the energy cost, how much more can New Jerseyans take?

with congestion pricing, with utility bills going up.

The price of food hasn't really come down at all.

Maybe a little.

I don't know how people are making it.

You definitely need a two income household to live in New Jersey.

David: they are taxing bowling, for goodness sake.

[LAUGHTER] There's a predictability to the budget process that should maybe come with a warning label about operating every machinery.

Will you get to some of these hearings?

what if anything do you expect to be different about the process this year?

>> I really don't expect anything different about the process unfortunately.

What typically happens and what I think we will wind up seeing despite are constantly writing about how unproductive this is at least for the public, we've got these public hearings to start.

We will hear from the treasurer to talk about any updates.

Asking about any updates in the state finances.

Then we will hear each individual department go and talk to the legislature.

Get grilled by lawmakers about their budgets.

There's usually a last word for people.

Then everyone goes away and goes into this back room.

I'm being a little facetious.

That's what happens.

The deals are struck.

People don't have another chance to comment.

Usually we see a budget a couple days before it has to be adopted.

You know, it often looks quite different.

Although it starts off as kind of a transparent process come at the end it a backroom deal.

David: the longer it goes, the less transparent it seems to become.

>> absolutely.

David: let's switch to the governor's.

Still a few months away but the elbows are sharpening.

Steve Sweeney making some news on a couple of fronts.

He's on Chat Box with us this week by the way.

On we particularly.

Maybe not the top issue on voters minds but it hasn't gone away.

Homegrown cannabis.

What did Sweeney say about that?

what's the context?

>> Sweeney came out and voiced support for medical patients to grow their own weed.

Ras Baraka and Steve Fulop have came out in support of medical and recreational weed.

Mikey Cheryl come out in support of some sort of concept of home cultivation.

But she said that she's willing to engage with stakeholders on it.

David: is it still looking like Mikey Cheryl is the front runner on the Democratic side?

she seems to be getting targeted more by her opponents.

>> yeah.

She's also got almost all of North Jersey and Central Jersey, depending on how you define it, wrapped up in terms of getting the endorsements of the parties.

Sweeney seems to have South Jersey wrapped up which is not unexpected.

There are allotment -- more voters in North Jersey.

We have to see.

This is the second year on the Democratic side that we are not going to have a partyline ballot.

The last time it came out fairly quickly.

So we've known this is coming.

We have a new ballot design.

It is possible that those endorsements are not going to mean quite as much when folks get to the ballot box.

There could be some splintering of Jersey votes.

Everyone else beside Sweeney's in the north or the central part.

Maybe Sweeney is wrapping up South Jersey.

That could be a factor there.

But this is a very long way to answer your question.

That is certainly, the betting money is on Cheryl to win.

David: Ras Baraka has come in second place in all of these county conventions.

This week, he and Bill Stadia got into it in the form in Newark.

Let's listen to a quick snippet of that and then we will come back.

>> it's interesting to me that everyone up here, all of my opponents have all served in government.

If they are all here telling you what they will do.

My question to all of them is, what have you done?

[Cross talk] [INAUDIBLE] >> let me just say, I hope you are the nominee of the Democratic Party.

>> may as well, brother.

[LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] [cross talk] David: you've covered every one of the Baraka years.

They would represent a real contrast on some any levels, no?

>> oh it certainly would.

But the likelihood of that happening is remote, especially for Stadia.

Raz, I loved his responses to that.

I think they were unfair shots that were leveled when he starts to talk about the kids.

Baraka has done an incredible job when it comes to improving the city of Newark in many ways.

When he first took office, I wasn't sure he would be able to do that.

So whether he can take this nomination away from Mikey Cheryl -- the poll has him as one of the top three as you mention.

It does come down to money.

Which candidate will have the money to make a difference?

I think, while they would be entertaining, I don't think that will happen.

No matter who gets into this race, the Republican versus Democrat debate is going to be spectacular, in my opinion.

Because I think we have some colorful candidates.

They may not all be well known.

Their name recognition is in great.

Once it gets down to the final two, we will be in for a treat.

David: about 30 seconds for you to wrap us up here.

He told Baraka, you are lucky you are in a safe space.

Will New Jersey vote for a Black candidate for governor?

>> I guess we will see during this primary, will me?

-- Whatley?

that's all there is to it.

He will still remain Mayor of Newark.

There's nothing that bans him from continuing to do that.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

David: interesting body language during that whole forum.

All right.

That's roundtable for the week.

Good to see you all.

Thanks for coming on.

Thanks also to Senator Britt for joining us.

We are on blue sky now.

Follow us.

Stay up-to-date with what the rest of the news team is covering by subscribing to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

For the entire crew here at Gateway Center in downtown Newark, we thank you for watching.

We will see you next week.

>> major funding for Reporters Roundtable with David Cruz is provided by RWJBarnabas health.

Let's be healthy together.

Rowan University.

Educating New Jersey leaders, partnering with New Jersey businesses, transforming New Jersey's future.

♪