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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with an important conversation with the United States Representative, Congressman Rob Menendez of the 8th Congressional District.

Congressman, good to have you with us.

- Thanks for having me.

Great to be with you, Steve.

- You got it.

Hey, listen, I know you were just running from a vote.

I'm not gonna ask you what that vote was on, because this'll air a little bit later.

But the Big, Beautiful Bill, by the way, do you call it that?

- I do not.

I do not.

- I don't either.

It's a budget bill, correct?

- Mm-hmm, yeah, that's correct.

- With a lot of stuff in it.

- Mm-hmm.

- Of all the stuff in that bill, Congressman, what's your greatest concern?

- The cuts to Medicaid.

That's gonna impact a lot of New Jerseyans.

Congressman Pallone and I are the two Democrats in Energy and Commerce.

Republicans tasked the committee with $880 billion in cuts, and that was primarily focused on Medicaid.

So, the two parts that I'm most concerned about are in terms of how those cuts to Medicaid are gonna impact all New Jerseyans, not just those that rely on Medicaid, which in New Jersey is NJ FamilyCare, but for everyone in our healthcare ecosystem.

So, the people who are on Medicaid now could potentially lose coverage on Medicaid.

As you know, this is an important program for so many New Jerseyans, from children, pregnant mothers, seniors, people with long-term disabilities.

So, I'm worried about them getting caught up in the red tape that the Republicans have added to the Medicaid program.

I'm worried about a lot of our safety net hospitals.

We have three of them in Hudson County because more people are going to show up there for their primary healthcare because they no longer have healthcare coverage through Medicaid.

That's gonna make the system more expensive.

And once the system's more expensive, that means that premiums are gonna go up for New Jerseyans.

So this could be really bad healthcare outcomes for so many of our friends and neighbors.

And that's the thing that really troubles me with this bill.

- What about the part of the bill that extends the Trump tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans that happened in 2017?

It extends those tax benefits.

And this legislation does that.

Do you believe that that's being done largely by making cuts in other places, Congressmen?

- Yeah, that's right.

I mean, they tried to make this as deficit neutral as they could, but- - What does that mean, deficit neutral?

- Sure, so.

- You don't add to the debt or the deficit?

- Federal government's simple, right?

There's money in in terms of how you raise revenue through taxes.

So, if you have tax cuts, that means you have less revenue in.

If you want to offset that, right, then you have to reduce federal spending.

And that's why you saw a huge cut to Medicaid, to SNAP.

Those are big federal programs.

- Go back to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Otherwise, before that known as Food Stamps.

There are some people we've interviewed, some right-leaning conservative folks who said, "Listen, it's no big deal.

That doesn't really impact people."

And I said, "There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in New Jersey who rely on SNAP."

What is the real impact?

- The real impact is that people who rely on the program, who are living largely paycheck to paycheck, are gonna have less assistance to put food on their family's tables.

That's gonna impact the nutrition of children, of adolescents, of seniors, right?

So, we know there's an affordability challenge across the country, and especially in New Jersey.

And a lot of families, a lot of individuals are doing everything that they can every single day to make it work.

The government in certain places tries to help.

And SNAP is one of those places to make sure that people don't go hungry.

Cutting SNAP, which is just cents and dollars on the day, right?

This is not something like a huge payout, like you mentioned, to the tax cuts, to the most wealthy amongst us who are gonna see tens of thousands of dollars in returns every year.

This is dollars a month that go and help people who are doing everything that they can to make ends meet.

And it's gonna impact their bottom line, especially as we continue to see grocery prices increase.

So, I would disagree with anyone that says this will not have an impact on our neighbors here in New Jersey, and it's gonna be a problem for a lot of individuals and families.

- Switch gears, immigration.

- Yeah.

- You have one of the largest immigrant populations in your district based largely in Hudson County, fair, Congressman?

- That's correct.

- Okay.

You were there with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, with your colleague or two of your colleagues, Bonnie Watson Coleman from the central part of the state, Congresswoman McIver in Newark You were right there in that scrum with the mayor and your two colleagues and those ICE agents at Delaney Hall in Newark.

Describe that scene for us.

- Yeah, it's something that I never envisioned experiencing in my life.

You know, Congresswoman Watson Coleman and McIver, we've done these types of oversight visits previously to the Elizabeth Detention Center.

There's something that we are allowed to do and have a right to do under law.

We've done it previously with no issue.

When Delaney Hall opened, we wanted to make sure that we, again, conducted oversight at the facility.

And every step of the way we were met with resistance.

Ultimately, the scene that you alluded to was something that was an escalation by DHS, by ICE.

There were over 20 armed, masked, unidentified ICE-HSI agents there to engage with the mayor of Newark, the mayor of the largest city in New Jersey.

- HSI is Homeland Security?

- Investigations, that's correct.

- Okay, go ahead.

- And all sit under DHS.

And so, you had three, you had four elected individuals, again, the mayor of the largest city in New Jersey and three members of Congress.

And they showed up with 20 armed individuals to engage with us, and specifically with the mayor.

And there was no need for that.

We had gone in, we obviously were allowed in because we have a right to be there.

The mayor had been allowed in, which is why the US attorney for New Jersey dropped the case against him.

And what they chose- - Alina Habba.

Alina Habba, who is as we speak, acting, but go ahead.

- Correct and had been Trump's personal attorney.

And what I saw that day was, in my opinion, something that should concern all Americans.

Now we can have disagreements about immigration, but the fact that the federal government felt like they could put their hands on two female members of Congress, that they could get into a physical altercation like that and try to intimidate three members of Congress and the mayor of New Jersey's largest city and do so without consequence, without fear, to me, shows that in Trump's America, no one should really feel safe.

You saw this with Senator Padilla in California.

There are gonna be more and more instances of this where the- - When Senator Padilla was wrestled to the ground by ICE agents.

- That's correct.

- As I believe he attempted to ask a question of Kristi Noem, is it?

- Yeah, Secretary Noem, that's correct.

- Okay.

What do you think this is all indicative of, Congressman?

- The executive branch wants to go unchecked.

The president wants to go unchecked.

You've seen an attack on federal judges, which, as you know, is a very sensitive thing in New Jersey, where we saw a couple of years ago what happened to Judge Salas's family.

This is, we should have separation of powers, we should have checks and balances.

That's what this country, what our constitution is founded on.

And this administration, this president doesn't want to feel bound by those separation of powers, by those checks and balances.

They want, and he wants complete authority.

The people around him want to try to create complete authority for him.

That is a very dangerous thing for all Americans.

- Congressman, put up the graphic right now for a miniseries we've been doing for a while now called "Democracy in Danger."

Here's the question that I keep wondering about.

President Trump has a tremendous amount of support in this country, including on immigration.

Now, you can debate the tactics and the process, but a vast majority of Americans do not believe that those who are here illegally deserve due process, that the president's not overstepping.

The Supreme Court has consistently, as we speak, we actually have an interview coming up with a professor at Seton Hall Law School on this.

The Supreme Court has backed him up.

So, what has he done adjudicated by the courts or by Congress, pushed back on Congress, that's been determined to be unconstitutional?

- Well, one, and it's a complicated question to ask 'cause you are right that his conservative Supreme Court has largely ruled in his favor.

- Yeah, they said "It's okay, Mr.

President."

- But I think what's important is what he told the American people.

And what he told a lot of people, including in the Hispanic community, was that he was only going to go after criminals.

And what we have seen day after day from the beginning of his administration to present day is that that was a lie to the American people and to a lot of people who supported him.

They thought if there are people here that are here illegally and who have criminal records or violent criminals, they need to be removed from the country.

That is something that there's bipartisan support for.

But when you go and you start ripping communities apart, when you go and you start ripping families apart, and as you know, in New Jersey, we have a lot of mixed status families.

It's now progressed to the fact where Tom Homan is saying that they can basically racially profile across the country that if someone looks to be Hispanic, they can be apprehended by ICE.

That's a problem and I think most Americans know intuitively- - Tom Homan said that?

The president's lead appointee.

- Yeah.

- As it relates to this mass deportation effort.

He said what about people who look Hispanic?

- Basically that there is, that ICE has the right to racially profile in this country.

And we can get you the exact quote on that, but it was said within the last week.

And that is a problem.

And if you look at what's happening in our communities, you know that that's how they are engaging, right?

Because targeted encounters with people with criminal records is one thing.

Mass raids, mass sweeping of Home Depots, mass sweeping of public spaces, including sensitive locations, in my opinion's not what the American people signed up for.

And you see in a lot of polling that the president is losing ground on immigration because this is not the version of immigration enforcement that people signed up for.

- Congressman, shift gears dramatically.

We're also part of an initiative called The First 1000 Days.

What is it about?

It's about childcare, from a woman becoming pregnant to a baby being two, her baby being two years of age, those first 1000 days.

Affordable, accessible, quality childcare.

You've talked about childcare, excuse me, the Child Tax Credit.

Explain to folks what that tax credit is and how it relates to childcare.

- Sure, so, one, lemme just touch on this critically important issue that you raised.

If we want to have healthy Americans, it starts with the pregnancy.

It extends through those first three years, two to three years.

We know that if the mother and the child have access to healthcare, you get better health outcomes.

If the child and the mother have access to healthy food and nutrition and medicine, those are better health outcomes for both the mother and the child.

And we can give every American a strong foundation is something that we should all be in complete agreement on.

With respect to the Child Tax Credit, what we saw was several years ago, the Child Tax Credit was money that went directly back to families with children, and it lifted over 50% of children out of poverty.

We know that too often that a child's academic and health outcomes are tied to their family's income.

So, if we can put money back in a family's pocket, right?

We know as a parent, I have two young children, that we're gonna invest that in our children.

Either it gives us the ability to have a stable place to live, which is an important thing for the health of any individual.

It's the opportunity to make sure that their children are well fed.

If they're between the ages of one and, or zero and two, that they have access to formula, to diapers, all of those things.

And we saw a dramatic impact of giving families money back, tax credit, right?

And what we saw in the outcome when we had the full Child Tax Credit was over half of children being raised outta poverty.

That's an incredible thing and shows what we can do here at the federal level to make sure that we're raising a healthy generation of Americans.

- Before I let you go.

I'm sure there's some people that would expect me to ask this, but I've known your dad for many years.

When I was running for the state legislature as a very young man, he was very supportive of me.

I've interviewed him more times than either one of us would want to admit.

Anything that you would want to say to the public about your dad as a father and as a grandfather?

- You know, I would say it's a challenging time for our family.

There's no hiding from that.

But what I would say is every family has a series of challenges that they have to navigate.

I know that individuals have hardships every single day, and that's something that we're dealing with as a family.

You know, I made sure that the last several weeks he could spend time with my kids to ensure that he had those precious moments with them.

It's something that makes me, you know, sad that I know that he won't have a lot of those moments moving forward.

But we do what every family does.

We navigate forward.

We make what, we deal with a bad situation that we have to and we move forward.

And like so many families, that's what we'll do and we'll figure it out.

- Congressman, to you and your family, including your sister, who is a great broadcaster over at MSNBC, we wish you and your family all the best.

Thank you, Congressman.

- Thanks so much, Steve, I appreciate it.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- Steve Adubato back, and we are joined by Alan Blinder, who is a national correspondent with the New York Times.

Alan, good to see you.

- Good to see you too, Steve.

Thanks for having me.

- You got it.

We're taping on the 15th of July.

Be seen later.

Front page of The New York Times, your paper.

The Gray Lady, if you will, "Education department can be gutted Justices decide".

The Supreme Court of the United States has said, Mr. President, you can gut it, you can get rid of everyone there.

What is the impact?

And you write about education, higher education a lot.

What do you believe the impact of that could be, would be?

- Well, what we hear from analysts on a pretty routine basis, former Department of Education officials, people who watch this, this world very closely for higher education, they worry about delays to federal student aid going out and how that will all be processed going forward.

There, you know, the Department of Education is really kind of a funding clearing house, and they do a lot of civil rights investigations.

It remains to be seen how all this will really play out.

But it was an extraordinary decision from the Supreme Court that when you talk to, to critics of it, they think will really transform the American educational landscape.

And when you talk to supporters of it, they see it as, as removing, as removing bloat in the bureaucracy.

- You know, the cliche when you say bloat, waste, fraud, excuse me, and abuse.

Many presidents, disproportionately Republicans have been talking about, quote doing away with the Department of Education for years.

Do you think those who advocate for getting rid of the Department of Education have any understanding of what the impact, the implications of doing that really are?

- Yeah, I think some people probably do.

I think some people probably suspect that this is just a, it's, you know, government growth gone wild.

It's been a, but you're right, it's been a critique of the department for basically its entire existence.

There have been people crusading for its closure.

So we'll see how it actually materializes.

I mean, look at this point, the department is, as the front page put it being gutted.

But, you know, it's not, it's not closed in full yet, but it's really gonna be interesting and important to watch over the coming months and years how that actually materializes.

- It's not as if higher education, the elites in ivory towers haven't been attacked by politicians from the, in the White House or other places.

That's been going on for years.

But what is different about the Trump administration going after Harvard, other universities on their DEI policies on to what degree they're protecting Jewish students or fighting against antisemitism as they frame it in the White House, or a whole range of other, excuse me, higher ed policies that they say, because you're not doing what we want you to do, we are going to cut funding, we're gonna cut research dollars.

Is that unprecedented in United States history?

- Yeah, that's what you're getting at.

I mean, the idea that you would have colleges really losing research funding, in Harvard's case potentially billions of dollars in funding.

And to your point that we have heard, especially conservatives criticize higher education and the elite institutions for a long time.

But these tactics of opening these, these investigations of, of cutting off funding, of, in the case of Harvard and Columbia, really sending specific demands that would involve hiring and admission.

So elements of, of how the university is structured, that is something we have not seen before.

And that's why you're hearing so much alarm from people in higher education.

Look, people in higher education are used to getting beaten up by politicians, by the press, by people online.

What they're not used to is that, is that beating going from a rhetorical one into one that really is striking at their bottom lines of how they operate.

- So, so I'm a Rutgers grad and alum, thousands of others come out of the state university, New Jersey, Rutgers.

Rutgers is getting cut as well.

Rutgers is raising tuition as we speak, other colleges and universities raising tuition, making serious cutbacks in staff and faculty.

Do you believe that's what people voted for when Donald Trump won not only the electoral college, but the popular vote that he would be doing this as the president?

- Well, I don't think he ran on the platform of raising tuition.

Look, we've seen tuition rising at schools, even those that, that are not really in the, in the biggest line of fire so to speak.

You're seeing tuition increases across the board.

I'm taping this today just outside of Omaha.

And the University of Nebraska, for example, is raising tuition and doing some cuts in the coming academic year.

So it's not just the elite schools, schools all over the board that are, that are for a variety of reasons finding they need to raise, raise tuition, cut services.

The University of Minnesota is both raising tuition and cutting services.

So, you know, the idea of of doing more with less.

They, they're now students are gonna be getting less for less, less for more I'm sorry.

- But, but hold on.

You're in Nebraska right now.

And where you happen to be taping today.

University of Nebraska.

So you said that President Trump did not run on saying he wanted colleges and universities to raise tuition, but isn't it a defacto, and this is not an attempt to protect or defend higher education.

The cost of higher education is too high.

It has not in general has nothing to do with President Trump.

But when you cut federal funding to the higher ed community, doesn't that defacto mean on some level you'll either have to make serious budget cuts and or raise tuition?

- It can, yeah.

It depends on the institution how acutely that's gonna hit.

In some places, it's not just they're getting squeezed by federal issues, it's that their state appropriations are flat.

It's that their state appropriations are effectively being cut.

That's part of the pressure too.

It's not the, it's not just a federal thing.

There is, especially with major state universities, you'll see a fair number of schools that aren't getting more support from their, from their state houses.

And that's a significant drag on their financial model too.

There's a lot of, there are a lot of different inputs and outputs playing out here.

But no, there's no doubt the federal, it's a hugely consequential one, especially when it comes to research money.

- On the DEI side.

If higher ed institutions simply continue the same programs around diversity, equity, and inclusion, but just change the names of those programs and use different language to frame it.

If people in the White House or others look on the website and they don't see the words, diversity, equity, inclusion, but universities and colleges continue to engage in policies that diversify the campus, include others and promote equity in higher education.

Is that enough, in your opinion, to keep those who are going after higher ed institutions on the DEI side to let it go, or are they gonna look deeper?

- One of my colleagues was recently writing about the, the turmoil of the University of Virginia, one of the great, the country's great public institutions.

And the president there at Virginia, a guy named Jim Ryan had been a deep advocate of DEI initiatives.

And they, and they renamed some things.

I think someone had a title of, like, it went from like a diversity VP to a community engagement VP.

And at days end the Trump administration put enormous pressure on Virginia and said, well, you're not moving fast enough.

You're not moving swiftly enough, you're hiding the ball.

And now Jim Ryan is no longer gonna be president of the University of Virginia.

So no, the administration does not appear to be, to be warm to simply, you know, moving names around, moving titles around.

And they appear intent on, on rooting out these types of programs and figuring out what the, you know, what, where they, where they had been placed.

- Yeah, last question on my end.

Academic freedom.

Those of us who have taught in higher education and been a part of the higher ed community understand and appreciate academic freedom.

To what degree, from your experience as a journalist is quote unquote academic freedom in peril?

- Well, if you asked some of the universities that have gotten, you know, in the, into the Trump administration's line of fire, they see it as profoundly under threat.

I mean, I was talking to a, a number of people at Harvard, of course, in recent weeks, and they've argued that any kind of intervention from the outside around hiring, around admissions, around faculty power, around how, you know, their, on viewpoint diversity and demanding that, that certain things be be taught or added or whatnot.

- Or not taught.

- Or not taught, that's exactly, so I mean, they wanted to shut down DEI programs at Harvard is one of the conditions.

When you get into that, that kind of space, what I hear routinely from presidents and chancellors and professors and others, is that they see it as a, as a significant encroachment on academic freedom.

And that's, well you know, that's kinda been the cornerstone of American academia for generations.

So they see a profound threat emerging and they're not quite sure the way out of it at this point.

- Yeah, academic freedom and also freedom of the press.

I think that's in the constitution.

Do you think it is, Alan?

- I do think that, yes.

- I pretty sure.

Alan Blinder is national correspondent for the New York Times.

Alan, we appreciate you being with us.

- Thanks for having me.

- Particularly from Nebraska.

Thank you, Alan.

- My pleasure.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, we'll see you next time.

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

Funding has been provided by The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Kean University.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

The New Jersey Education Association.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

Valley Bank.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

And by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Media.

And by NJBIZ.

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