[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We continue our conversations with candidates running for governor of the Great State of New Jersey, with Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from Bergen County.

Good to see you, Congressman.

- Hey Steve, good to see you.

Thanks for doing this.

- You got this.

We're taping this on the 28th of January.

It's, literally when we're taping this, a week after President Trump has taken office.

The most significant takeaway for you after this first week, because the policy implications of those executive orders are long lasting.

- I mean, listen, it's some week, right?

I mean, is overwhelming in terms of every direction coming at you.

My biggest takeaway from a Jersey perspective is making sure we do everything we can to protect the families in Jersey.

Stand up for our values.

And, you know, this is gonna be months of dealing with this, but our number one focus has to be to make sure we take care of Jersey families.

You know, I'm very focused on making life more affordable for families in Jersey and doing everything we can to get those costs down, get taxes down so that people can afford to stay in Jersey, live in Jersey.

And of course, protect the values that make Jersey what it is, right?

And why a lot of people wanna be here in the first place, because of our values.

- If there were, in fact, a Governor Gottheimer, the number one tax policy that you would advocate would be?

- I put out a tax cut plan just last week, including a nearly 15% across the board property tax cut, rental rebates for families to do everything we can to get our property taxes down, our costs down, and make life more affordable.

I've also taken on to make sure that we can get some relief for our seniors to encourage people to move to Jersey and jobs, especially to get to Jersey so we can grow our state.

Steve, you know, one of the biggest problems we're facing is we keep losing people, was about half a million people in the last couple years.

We're losing a lot of jobs.

We gotta turn that around so that we have the resources we need to be able to invest in our great state and do right by our folks.

- You know, congressman, we're trying to ask every candidate for governor comparable questions, but the timing is different of these interviews.

And the first half of the show, Congresswoman Mikie Sherril was interviewed before the president took office.

He had won the election, but things are changing.

So that's why as you watch these, not every question is asked of every candidate for governor, but I do wanna ask you this, because of your direct involvement with the, quote, congestion pricing issue.

You talked about jobs, what about jobs in New York City for people in Bergen County and other parts of Northern New Jersey, you have to go into New York.

Explain to folks in a minute or less the issue with congestion pricing put forth by the MTA, the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York.

- Well, I've been fighting the congestion tax for years 'cause it's a tax on hard working Jersey families, on nurses or electricians.

It basically says that on top of what you gotta pay to go over the GW Bridge or through the tunnels to get to work or go see a family member, go to a doctor.

New York now is whacking our families with another $9 a day just to go into New York south of 60th street.

They keep every nickel for themselves.

But it costs an absolute fortune.

And it's also leading already to more traffic in Northern New Jersey.

More truck traffic and car traffic.

People trying to avoid the zone backed up at the GW Bridge.

That means more pollution and more traffic for our families in Northern New Jersey.

It's outrageous.

I'm fighting it.

I'm gonna continue to fight it.

As governor- - Congressman, sorry for interrupting.

Where would you fight it?

In the courts, in the federal government, where?

- Well, it's still being fought in the courts.

In fact, governor Murphy just announced another suit, I think just yesterday, where we've got legislation in Congress where I sit, we've got bipartisan legislation to strip the MTA of their federal dollars, which is the mass transit system that this money goes to in New York City.

Nothing for Jersey families here and to fight them there.

And listen, there's other ways we can obviously fight New York.

The bottom line, Steve is on every front, New York sticks it to us.

They're not cooperative neighbors.

They forget that we have an economy together.

They just, you know, wanna do things for what they need despite their massive mismanagement at the MTA in New York.

They're just trying to stick it to Jersey Families.

- Congressman, let's shift gears.

As I said, because we're taping these interviews with candidates for governor at different times.

There are different issues.

There is no other candidate for governor that we've interviewed after the raids from the federal government, ICE, the folks who are responsible for immigration policy, or implementation of immigration policy.

Help us understand this.

First issue.

First issue is, you voted, you are one of the few Democrats who voted for the quote unquote Laken Riley legislation, which would require immigration officials to detain undocumented immigrants charged with murder, theft, burglary, and a variety of other crimes.

Given what you've seen from ICE officials going into all kinds of communities, including in New Jersey, grabbing folks, I don't know how they know they committed a crime or not.

Do you in any way regret that vote for that bill with most other Republicans?

In fact, virtually all Republicans, - Listen, the 45 Democrats and more who said, what I believe, which is, listen, if you are a criminal and you're undocumented and committed crime in New Jersey or in this country, you shouldn't be here.

What my other big focus is, to your point, is if what President Trump has also announced and what he's doing in, what he did in restaurants and what he said he's going to do in schools and in churches, is literally go in and raid these places and gather up innocent, undocumented people in churches and schools and in restaurants.

That's unacceptable.

I've said we've gotta make sure we use the full force of New Jersey and what we can do to stand up to that.

- But, Congressman, respectfully, if the federal government says through the president, through an executive order, not through Congress, "We're doing this," what can the state of New Jersey do?

What can local law enforcement officials do?

- You saw what they did in Chicago the other day at the school.

They said, "You're not welcome here.

You can't come in here."

There's plenty we can do.

And Governor Murphy has done through directives in the past to say, you know, there's a huge difference between if you are a criminal, you're breaking into someone's house in the middle of the night while their kids are sleeping and you're undocumented.

That's one thing.

Raiding and rounding up innocent people in churches and schools is another.

And that's unacceptable.

And there's a lot we can do.

There's a lot we've gotta make sure we do.

And this is kind of the bigger point, see, right, we're gonna have to make sure when this administration messes with Jersey families and tries to use their power to do so, when we stand up to 'em, when it makes sense and make sure we protect our values, you know, if there's other things they wanna sit down and talk about, like doing everything we can to re-institute the SALT deduction and get taxes down from- - State and Local Tax Deduction.

Do you think, you've been fighting this for years, the taking, Trump from previous administration took that away, that deduction for state and local taxes.

If you were a betting person, and I'm not sure you are, congressman, would you bet that that will be reinstated?

That tax deduction.

- When I'm in Atlantic City, you know.

(both laugh) Do I bet on it?

Based on the conversations, I co-chaired the SALT Caucus.

We've now passed it four times outta the house.

The moocher red states and the Senate have blocked Restoring SALT and getting taxes down for Jersey families now, every single time.

We're at a different crossroads now, Steve, because the bill from 2017 that they passed is expiring.

So this issue has to get dealt with this year.

I believe, based on the conversations I've had with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we will get more SALT back, meaning, we'll lower taxes for families in Jersey, middle class families in Jersey.

And so if I were betting, I would bet if there's a tax bill, expanding SALT will be part of it.

Now the key is fighting to make sure we get the most, I want it all back, of course, because I think it's double taxation and we used to not have to pay twice.

And given how generous we are to the country in New Jersey, we help a lot of states out with our tax dollars.

I think it just makes sense.

So we're gonna fight tooth and nail as we always do to get it all back, but that's the negotiation we're having right now.

- So again, we're taping on the 28th of January, be seen later.

Your view of this is interesting.

Right now as we speak, and I don't know how this is gonna play out, the federal government through the Trump administration has said, "We're gonna freeze federal funding."

And again, by the time this airs, that may have changed.

How much sense does it make to you, congressman, to say that we're gonna freeze funding to states for federal programs administered by the states if we feel that those states are not in sync with the Trump policies and what people voted for in the last election, November, 2024?

Congressman?

- The whole thing's outrageous, because in Congress we make decisions, right?

For instance, to make sure that there's resources for our communities, for law enforcement, for firefighters, right?

For food for children, for cancer research and to just blanket, which is what the president just did, blanket freeze all spending of decisions we've made in government to support these, of course, critical, critical issues for our states and critical investments, makes zero sense.

You know, you don't just say we're gonna, you know, blanket, across the board thing.

You gotta be smart about policies.

I get, listen, if there are things they disagree with, they can raise them with us.

And that's why we have a budget process and they can fight them, right?

And we can have this debate, but just to decide, "Hey, I know you guys made a decision to take care of law enforcement or invest in firefighters or cancer research and we're just gonna freeze it."

That makes zero sense.

And obviously we're gonna be fighting that.

As we started to last night, - Congressman, I think we got about two minutes left.

The graphic will come up.

Democracy in danger.

We, for the couple last couple years we've been doing programming, talking about our representative democracy being in danger for a variety of reasons.

To what degree do you believe in a second Trump administration we're in greater danger of preserving our representative democracy?

- Well, I think it doesn't help when you actually take the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and other people who on January 6th took flagpoles and beat law enforcement, beat cops, 140 of 'em and then say, "You can go free."

It doesn't send the signal that I think we should as a country.

But listen, I think we live in the greatest country in the world.

I'm a huge optimist and I know that if we work together and stand together as, and I co-chair and have for years and leading now, helping lead now the Problem Solvers Caucus, it's Democrats and Republicans actually getting stuff done.

We've gotten some of the toughest stuff done that people said we couldn't, common sense gun safety legislation, the infrastructure bill, which I helped write and negotiate, which is building the Gateway train tunnel and helping fix our roads and bridges and expansion of the child tax credit to make childcare more affordable, things in ways that people said were impossible to work together and get done.

So I'm gonna continue to do work with folks to get anything done if it's good for Jersey, it lives up to our values.

I'm gonna remain optimistic and then fight, you know, where we need to, as we just talked about.

I think that's gotta be the right approach.

We live in this great democracy, but, you know, and our enemies win when they successfully divide us up.

We can't let them, we gotta stand together and as a democratic party, we have to make sure, Stephen, this is really important, that we remind people that we are fighting to make their lives more affordable.

To get taxes down, whether that's childcare, healthcare, issues that they're struggling with, the second highest healthcare cost in the country here in Jersey, with food, utility bills, all these things.

We gotta make sure we do everything we can to get costs down, get our taxes down, and make life more affordable for our families.

That's the key message, 'cause we fight for those hardworking people and that's gonna make sure that our voters remember when they go to the booth, not just this November, but going forward, we're the party of actually fighting for working families.

- There is in fact a primary in June, there'll be one Democratic nominee.

There'll be one Republican nominee.

There'll be election for governor in November of 2025, 1 of only two in the United States, New Jersey and Virginia.

This has been Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a democrat from Northern New Jersey, Bergen County.

Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.

- (Indistinct), it's great to be here.

- You got, I'm Steve Adubato, that's the congressman, candidates for governor, we'll keep bringing 'em to you.

See you next time.

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