[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - 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.

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