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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone.

Steve Adubato.

For the next half hour, you're gonna see two candidates running for governor as part of our series as to who's gonna be the next governor of the great State of New Jersey.

Election is in November of 2025.

There's a primary in June of 2025.

First, you're gonna see Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill.

We interviewed her after President Trump had won the election, but he hadn't taken office.

Second half, you're gonna see Congressman Josh Gottheimer.

They're both Democrats.

That was done on the 28th of January, one week after President Trump had been in office.

We asked the Congress members different questions based on the timing of those interviews for obvious reasons.

Here are those conversations.

- Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

Welcome to another edition of a compelling important series called New Jersey's Next Governor.

Yeah, 2025.

Big decision to make.

We're now joined by United States Congresswoman, Mikie Sherrill, a Democratic candidate for Governor.

Congresswoman, thank you for joining us.

- Thanks so much for having me.

Great to be back.

- Do this for us, one minute or less on your personal bio that particularly matters if you were New Jersey's next governor, because a lot of it does have to do with that.

- Sure, I went to the Naval Academy, graduated, served in the Navy for almost 10 years as a helicopter pilot and a Russian policy officer, developing a lot of leadership skills as I led men and women from across the country in missions across the world.

And then when I got out, I went back to law school, I became a federal prosecutor.

I'm raising my four kids in New Jersey.

And now, after six years in Congress, after working really incredibly hard on those issues that matter most to New Jerseyans, whether it's flooding or auto thefts, or mental health of our children, I really would love to run for governor to bring a fresh perspective down to Trenton, to work hard on affordability and opportunity, while at the same time protecting rights and freedoms here in the garden state.

- Thank you, Congresswoman.

Do this for us.

Affordability, easy to talk about, hard to impact in a positive way.

How the heck, if you were governor, would you make New Jersey more affordable, particularly for those who are struggling financially, which is most of the state?

- Well, let's face it, we can't make New Jersey more affordable if we don't make housing more affordable.

And it's impacting people at every level.

So whether it's that first starter home you want to move into, or all of the people that can't do that, that are going into the rental market and driving prices up there, and we've gotta build houses, we just don't have the inventory we need.

I've seen statistics that we are 150,000 to over 200,000 housing units short of where we need to be in this state.

And I hear it all the time.

You know, I hear people who are in a two-bedroom apartment in Madison, New Jersey to be in a good school system with their two kids.

And we're losing out to other states who provide a lot more affordability.

New Jersey's been lucky, unlike a lot of other blue states, we haven't seen that mass exodus.

We've actually grown in population, but we are not gonna continue to be able to do that to fuel this innovative workforce if we don't address the cost of living here.

- Hey, you talk about New Jersey being a blue state, the color may be changing according to some, we'll see.

- Not if I can help.

- What did you say?

- I said not if I can help it.

- Not if you can, but let's put this out there.

This is not a show on political prognostication or polling or anything like that.

I told you before we started, it's policy-centric, but Donald Trump loses the state by only a few percentage points in a so-called blue state.

And let's just say this, while we are doing this a couple days before President Trump is inaugurated, becomes president officially, again, from a policy point of view, a couple of areas, if you were governor and there was an effort to engage in mass deportation of those who are here illegally, what would your responsibility be as governor in New Jersey to either implement what the federal government does in the Trump administration or something other than that?

- Well, look, I think we'd have to see exactly what it is that the administration tries to implement and how they want that to operate.

Because here's the thing, we desperately need comprehensive immigration reform.

We have a broken immigration system that's not working for anyone.

The mass deportations alone would be, would make it almost impossible in many cases to run our economy.

I know what we hear from, say, rural farm workers about the food supply in the event that that would happen, just as one example.

So what we need to do is make sure that we have secure borders, that we have a pathway to citizenship for people who are here, that we have better processing so that when people do want to come here legally, they can be processed through the system quickly.

And none of this is happening.

And this has been on the table for years.

That is what we have to do because let's face it, without comprehensive immigration reform, we continue to have a huge drain on our wages as we see unscrupulous employers go with, you know, for example, non-union employees so they can drive down workforce wages.

In fact, I had a union member I was talking to who was recently down in South Carolina with a bunch of Trump people, some big developers in South Carolina, and he said, well, what are you gonna do?

Because you guys are all employing non-union.

And the guy's like, yeah, I employ a lot of undocumented people and you know, we keep their wages down really low.

And he said, well, what are you gonna do?

'cause Trump said he's gonna deport them.

And he said, oh, we're not gonna let him do that.

You know, that's not how we run our economy.

Here in New Jersey, we wanna make sure that we have a pathway for people to become documented so that when you are going forward, you have the ability to ensure that wages, fair wages are being met, that workforce conditions are being met.

And if you have people here who are undocumented, they're not gonna go to the police.

They're not gonna go to the police if they have insecure conditions, they're not even gonna go to the police if they see some, you know, something going on in their neighborhood.

We need to run our economy better, and that starts with comprehensive immigration reform.

- State funding of public schools.

The formula that has been in place for a while, it's been tweaked here and there, but there are many communities that are arguing that the current formula gives them the shaft, that the state is not providing those dollars to their communities, which forces them to raise property taxes to make up for the difference.

What if, as governor, what if anything, would you do to try to change the state funding formula in public schools?

- You know, we need to modernize it.

We have a formula that was set up in 2008, and so we need a formula now that's modernized, that's really addressing the needs of our schools in the best possible ways.

And we also need to give some understanding to schools what's coming.

We have these funding formulas that change, and it really catches some of our towns in a vice really, as they've tried to employ more teachers and then they see rollbacks in funding.

So we really have to address this, make sure towns are aware of what is coming, understand the formula better year over year, and then also modernize that formula across the state.

- I've asked you many times in previous interviews, by the way, go back and check at SteveAdubato.org, website up, many interviews with the congresswoman.

I asked her about this from a national perspective because she's a federal official, but if you were governor, you know, I've told you that we're involved in this public awareness initiative around childcare, affordable, accessible, quality childcare, first 1,000 days, the graphic will come up.

If as governor, which is different than being a member of Congress.

Your priorities as it relates to childcare are?

- Oh my gosh, Steve, they're largely my priorities at the federal level.

As you know, I have legislation with Elizabeth Warren that no one should pay more than 7% of their income on childcare.

And this comes from a really personal place for me because I struggled very much with childcare with my four kids as they were young and before they went into kindergarten.

And it was really, really difficult.

There were times when I was sort of on the verge of quitting my job to handle this and if I had done that, I don't think I'd be in congress today.

So childcare is really central to many parents' lives and what their future economic gains are gonna be.

And we know that not finding quality and affordable childcare for families can be like a 20% hit on someone's lifetime earnings.

So it's really crucial to families.

Here in the garden state, we need to make sure as a, I'm very much for universal pre-K, which is great, but as we know that upends the infant-based model that we have in the state and how we pay for infants, which is a really, really expensive time to provide childcare.

In fact, in about the states in our nation, the cost of center-based infant care is more than the cost of in-state college tuition.

So we really have to make sure that as we're creating this universal pre-K type system in our state, which is really great for kids, really helps with learning and can keep our state at the cutting edge.

We also have to figure out how we are going to pay childcare workers.

I think on the job training is one of the ways in which we need to get this done.

Because as we know now, they have so many certifications and they're not making enough in wages and many times they have to take time off to get those certifications.

So on-the-job training is key.

And then we also need to make sure we are pushing in on those childcare worker wages while at the same time ensuring that we don't have these infant care deserts, because quite frankly, that sometimes is the hardest time when you're told you have to get back to work and you don't know where you're going to send your child.

Your local childcare center doesn't take children until they're two years old or they do take young children, but the waiting list is two years long.

You're really caught in a bad situation.

And that's when we see so many parents, especially women dropping out of the workforce.

- Do this for us.

There is gonna be a new president as we do this program a couple days, as I said, President Trump.

What's your greatest concern about a President Trump vis-a-vis his policies and their impact on New Jersey, particularly if you were governor?

Number one concern?

- You know, it's how we run our economy because for people to continue to move into our state, for people to continue to get the great jobs and to fuel our economy, for people to continue to build in the state.

If we're gonna build out affordable homes for people to live in, for your starter home or that home you wanna move into after you sell the home you raised your family in, in so many ways, the way we wanna move our economy forward, the way we wanna invest in our future, like the Gateway Tunnel Project, which requires annual appropriations, how we wanna make sure we continue to run that great school system while not being double taxed by a cap on the state and local tax deduction.

These are all- - Hold on one second.

The state and local tax deduction otherwise known as SALT, which was taken away in the previous Trump administration.

Do you believe President Trump is now in a position to reinstate the state and local tax deduction?

Do you believe he'll do that?

- We are fighting it tooth and nail.

I am on the SALT Caucus.

It's a bipartisan group.

So we were hearing from our colleagues who were just in Mar-a-Lago with Trump, I believe he tried to sell a, okay, I'll double it to 20,000.

They said that is not gonna cut it.

So we are working very hard as the SALT Caucus to figure out how to make sure that we get of this double taxation for people in New Jersey.

- Congresswoman Mikie Sherril, a Democrat running for governor of the great state of New Jersey, part of our series, Mew Jersey's Next Governor, a huge decision to make in 2025.

Thank you, Congresswoman.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you so much.

Have a great one.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To see more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato programs, find us online and follow us on social media.

- 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.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

Kean University.

Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Operating Engineers, Local 825.

The New Jersey Education Association.

IBEW Local 102.

And by New Brunswick Development Corporation.

And by these public spirited organizations, individuals and associations committed to informing New Jersey citizens about the important issues facing the Garden State.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com.

And by Insider NJ.

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