[music] Is it a kick and a miss or a game-ending score?

New Jersey's setting itself apart when it comes to pricing transit for the FIFA World Cup games, and the world is taking notice.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

This is Reporters Roundtable.

We've got a panel of journalists here with us to help break down everything that's happened in this last week of New Jersey news.

Let's meet our panelists.

First up, we have Jelani Gibson, politics reporter for NJ Advanced Media.

We have Ry Rivard, reporter with Politico NJ, and our own Ben Hulac, Washington, D.C.

correspondent for NJ Spotlight News.

So the prices are set.

One hundred fifty dollars for a train ride to and from the World Cup games here in New Jersey.

Think that's a lot?

Well, it's led to a showdown between the Sherrill administration and FIFA, and it's riled up some fans as well, although lawmakers here seem to be in support.

Jelani, I'm going to start with you.

What have we heard from Governor Sherrill and NJ Transit CEO Chris Calori in terms of why these prices have to be set so high?

Well, essentially what you've heard from them is that they're basically pointing the finger at the previous administration and saying that they got a raw deal.

So you know, they've been out there saying that they're going to do their best on the transit side to make sure people get there as best as possible.

But it still all really seems to be up in the air about what the ultimate cost of all of these prices are going to be, apparently also including for the World Cup tickets themselves.

Yeah, FIFA's pushed back, but this seems to be, I guess, a contest of who's going to blink first.

Ry, let's just talk about what they've outlined as the plan.

There's this whole safety measure that CEO Chris Calori laid out last week, really talking about how only NJ Transit riders who have a, I should say, only riders who have a World Cup ticket will be allowed on any NJ Transit trains.

Can you just explain how they're rerouting, in simple terms, how they're kind of rerouting the trains to control for that?

Yeah, during the time that people are heading toward the stadium, it's going to be hard to get from New Jersey to New York City.

And during the time people are leaving Met Life Stadium, it will be hard for people from New Jersey to get back from New York City to New Jersey.

This is part of a really unprecedented security event, as NJ Transit has described it, for the region.

You probably will have heads of state, probably the president at some point, visiting these games, people from all over the world.

And you also have to get them there sort of flawlessly.

NJ Transit has committed to taking 40,000 people to the stadium and back and through basically kind of like a three ring security perimeter, one at Penn Station in New York, one at Secaucus, and then another at the stadium itself.

And there'll be private security, federal security, state and local security authorities, all trying to keep this event secure.

Jelani, I want you to jump back in here.

When we compare how other states are handling it, I should say the city of Boston saw a smaller margin of increase, although they're the only ones that are kind of comparable in terms of the ticket pricing.

They went from $20 a ticket to $80.

Here in New Jersey, it's $12.90, jumping to $1.50 for that ride.

Have you gotten a sense how fans are responding to this?

Well, fans don't like it, and neither do riders.

I mean, nobody likes to hear that they're going to pay $100-plus for a ticket.

And neither, apparently, do the commuters for NJ Transit that have nothing to do with the World Cup.

And so it's going to be something of a... The most politest word I can come up with is "inconvenience" for a lot of people that are not happy with the ticket prices.

Yeah.

Kalori told us, you know, "Look, this is eight days.

We can plan ahead.

We have plenty of time."

NJ Transit riders who would typically be commuting take these eight days to work from home.

That's their big call.

But for those who cannot work from home, you know, as as I was just saying, there's going to be this four hours before the game, three hours after the game where you cannot access NJ Transit.

Right.

He does say, look, we're not a transportation desert.

There are other ways to get in and out of New York City buses, perhaps.

Do you see this as a viable and smooth transition for people who are used to taking the train?

I think about, and I think this is what Cheryl has been picking up on, is that the World Cup is a sort of an elite event.

To be able to get there, you know, there are ticket prices in the thousands of dollars.

There's not probably that many for voters as a percentage of the population that is going to be there.

If NJ Transit has to take these costs and add to a budget gap that we've all widely talked about, you're helping people get to a game that most people can't afford to go to at the expense of raising ticket prices or cutting service for regular commuters throughout the rest of the year.

And I think Governor Sherrill's sort of making the bet that she can talk about affordability and villainize FIFA at the same time, and that most people will be with her.

And I think you've seen some support for that position.

There's certainly been criticism of it from other politicians.

But if you see what Chuck Schumer is saying, Senator Chuck Schumer in New York or New York City Mayor Mahmoud Abadani, you're seeing some people who are also criticizing FIFA.

And so I think there's not just the ticket price, but there's a lot of messaging around what that means and who should be paying what.

And I think she's saying everybody shouldn't be paying for an event that's really only accessible to the few anyway.

When you talk about those ticket prices, we just saw news this morning that some ticket prices, there are four tickets I believe that are going for $2.3 million.

Of course, some of this is sale and resale.

It's not necessarily FIFA that's setting those.

A single ticket, even in the highest section, could go for somewhere above $100,000, which is just wild when you think about it.

Ben, let's talk about the role of the federal government in all of this.

They have been supportive of the host cities here in America, but that support came with some fits and starts and all tied to DHS funding.

What can you tell us there?

It did.

I think listening to Jelani and Ry talk about the funding issues and transit issues, I'm thinking back to last summer when Congress passed a funding bill that set aside $625 million for host cities, including in New Jersey, for transit issues, to fill the transit gap, because the... Let's remember, this is the biggest sporting event in the world, so the volume of fans and demand is just not something that state and local budgets can cover.

The $625 million was passed by Congress last summer.

It only got allocated in March.

So across the nation, transit agencies, local officials are scrambling to put this money into use.

And that's really the thing I think that bears repeating here.

Yeah, and there's this whole Amtrak piece too, right?

And Rye spoke about it and we'll go back to Rye on it too.

But Ben, when we look at federal investment in Amtrak and infrastructure upgrades, have we seen real progress since last summer?

And we've had just, you know, what we call the summer of hell year after year.

But we know there have been improvements.

What do you expect there?

What are the biggest changes you expect?

What are the biggest changes you expect?

What are the biggest changes you expect?

The New York City subway sort of playing into the mix here and then NJ Transit.

And Amtrak is funded differently than other federal agencies.

It gets some money from Congress.

It gets some money through passengers.

But the broad picture is officials don't want to be stuck paying bills that they think FIFA should bear, to Rai's earlier point.

Rai, you say that the world is about to see America's transit infrastructure issues.

How bad could this go if we see something like some of the Amtrak failures with the catenary wires that Ben was just talking about, if they break down like we've seen in the past?

You know, you could see massive delays, but that is something that Amtrak and NJ Transit have been thinking about for a while.

I was talking to Amtrak about this in December, and there have been planning meetings for a long time before that, I think.

You know, NJ Transit is going to have hundreds of buses on standby in case there's a failure of the rail system.

That's part of, you know, the expense that you're seeing that Amtrak needs to -- I'm sorry, that NJ Transit needs to account for.

And as far as the money from the federal government, it's been sort of mixed.

You know, I think a significant chunk of that $600 million was for security.

Security and transit get sort of mixed together because they're sort of the same thing at times.

You know, NJ Transit talks about securing as it's transporting.

But a lot of that $600 million was for security.

And then there's a separate package of money, another $100 million, that's just sort of more focused on transit itself.

But, you know, divided among 11 American cities that are hosting, even $700-800 million isn't that much to cover, as we've been discussing, this sort of massive infrastructure security movement event.

Jelani, you say that the Sherrill administration got stuck with a bad deal.

Obviously, this agreement was made under the Murphy administration.

The original iteration was that these transit rides, the train rides would be offered for free.

But when I pressed Calori about, you know, this cost, he said, look, in 2023, there was an update to that agreement that said we would cover it at cost.

This is cost.

He said, this is what it's going to cost.

We've been talking about that budget gap for NJ Transit.

But FIFA pushes back and they say that this will have a chilling effect on people actually taking the trains.

What impact do you think it could or will have?

And do you think this showdown is all for show and kind of goes away?

Well, I'm rather skeptical that this is going to go away.

I mean, it has to be figured out sooner rather than later.

The ticket prices, it's not just about the ticket prices, right?

And I mean, we talked about some of that earlier.

This is about a massively expensive event that most New Jerseyans will not be able to afford.

And so it's also an optics thing, right?

When the administration is talking about affordability and, you know, a working class struggle.

And then you also have the New York mayor talking about the same thing across the river.

They're both considering the optics of what it looks like to have an event take place in their backyard that most people cannot afford.

So when you talk about optics, you teed up my next question perfectly.

We have a Sheryl administration that's pounded away on the issue of affordability, creating affordability.

And now we have Senator Paul Starlow and maybe joined by other lawmakers in the state who is considering a 9 percent sales tax around the area during the time that the World Cup is here.

That would apply to restaurants, to shopping, to some gambling would be a different rate.

But Jelani, if we're talking about affordability and we're increasing the sales tax by 3% and that would apply to New Jerseyans as well, what do you think those optics would be for the Sherrill administration?

Well, it certainly depends on who you ask.

The Democrats essentially are betting that they'll be able to get away with it, quite frankly, because of the cost of the World Cup.

And their argument is that they need to implement this to basically recoup the cost so that regular, everyday New Jerseyans are not hurt by how expensive the event is.

The Republicans and the business lobby are essentially saying that it's a tax, it's going to drive prices up, and that it's going to make the event less popular.

So time is going to tell basically whose side is right on that one.

>> Yeah, and Ry, some are saying, like Jelani said, many in the business community say, we're going to price ourselves right out of these types of events.

New Jersey is going to become the place that no one wants to do business.

What impact do you think it could have?

It's funny.

A New York lawmaker joked, because New York is co-hosting this with us, although most of the people will be staying in New York and all of the matches are in New Jersey.

A New York lawmaker joked, "We're not going to host anything with New Jersey ever again."

At the same time, we have MetLife and they don't in New Jersey.

So the options are very limited for where people can watch a major sporting event right now.

And until that changes, they're going to be coming to New Jersey.

And I don't know where else they'll go.

After all, the New York teams play in New Jersey.

Even though New Jersey gets second billing always when it comes to the naming.

But we'll leave that alone for now.

Ben, while this plays out at home, the Sherrill administration actually is reaching out to the federal government looking for some funding.

They're asking for FEMA aid because of the impact of this February blizzard.

Can you talk about who's joined on?

This is a bipartisan group that joined into this letter with the administration.

Yeah, I think in general, it's important to remember that Donald Trump, as president, has routinely withheld funding aid for emergency declarations.

President Trump has to sign off on FEMA money before it goes out the door.

He has to actually declare an emergency, a hurricane, a natural disaster emergency.

I'm flashing back to his first presidency when he sort of made a show of not doing this and then actually went to Puerto Rico after the island was hit by a hurricane, I think in 2017 or 2018, and was flinging supplies, food, and paper into the crowd.

So this is something he wields as a political cudgel, not unlike withholding gateway funding for New York and New Jersey.

So I think also the backdrop here that should be pointed out is that DHS has been without proper allocated funding for about 70 days now.

And there is no clear breakthrough coming from Congress.

What will likely happen, and we can get into this more, is Congress will pass a party-line budget reconciliation bill into law to fund DHS that will include seriously more funding, tens of billions of dollars for both ICE and Customs and Border Protection.

I believe it was six Democrats joined by Congressman Van Drew, only Republican, who called for this.

Like you said, this comes at a time when DHS funding is stalled.

Is there a bit of hypocrisy here if Democrats are holding out on funding DHS and then turning around and asking for FEMA aid?

Well, it's, I guess in theory, they've said all from the start when funding negotiations broke down over DHS that we like the rest of DHS.

We like FEMA.

We want money for it.

We want money for the Coast Guard, which has a big presence in Cape May County, but we do not want more funding for ICE and CBP.

Both of those agencies got tens of billions of dollars in the federal law that that went into force last summer, actually the law that contains that FIFA money.

So their point is these these agencies are well stocked and will be for years to come.

We need the FIFA, we need the FEMA money rather now.

Yeah, we know ICE is funded through the end of the Trump administration, although I've seen reporting that FEMA is struggling to to meet its financial obligations.

Do you think there's a chance that we don't get, final point on this, chance that we don't get that funding?

Of course there's a chance.

And also the leadership at DHS has changed recently.

So out went Kristi Noem and in is Mark Wayne Mullen, a Republican hardliner from Oklahoma.

There is a money snafu here and then also a leadership snafu.

So there's really a lot spinning.

- Federal funding aside, state budget process is in full swing.

We've got Governor Sherrill making an announcement yesterday that there's a new state budget report card.

Jelani, tell us about this website where voters can track where the money's going.

Right now it's a data visualization tool and it basically lays out how much money is being spent in the budget and where the money is going.

I'm interested to see if the report card is also going to reflect any pork and legislative add-ons.

But as of right now, the report card certainly shows where the money is going, and it's an interactive tool.

What remains to be seen is how detailed it's going to be.

And they said that they're still building out some features.

And so I am waiting to see what those additional features look like.

That's a great point, because we've got kind of the big chunks there.

You can see school funding, health and pensions benefits.

You can see how much is going to state property tax rebate programs like StayNJ and then other things like New Jersey Family Care.

Not many voters even understand some of those chunks.

But us, you know, political insiders, like you said, we want to see where the pork barrel spending, the Christmas tree items are going.

Ben, quickly back to you.

We have a new congresswoman.

We have Analilia Mejia sworn in on Monday before all the final votes were counted, but Speaker Mike Johnson did move forward on that.

Can you just break down quickly how her addition impacts the numbers in an ever-changing world where it seems like every day someone's resigning?

Yeah, it was quite a wild week.

And Mejia, there was no doubt she won the election, so she was sworn in.

And I was there Monday night talking with her.

Family was there.

Quite a scene.

It's really special when you win a special election, you get to make a speech unlike members who win in the regular course of the election timetable and are sworn in at the start of a new Congress.

So she got to talk.

But to your point, Joanna, this is a really tumultuous time.

She's sworn in Monday night.

On Tuesday, a Florida Democrat, Sheila Scherfelis McCormick, resigned.

She had been accused of actually abusing, embezzling FEMA funding, to circle back to FEMA funding.

And then on Wednesday, David Scott, a Democrat from Georgia, dies.

So it was a totally topsy-turvy week.

And then, of course, we have and this is important because the margin is so tight.

Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, can only afford a missing, depending on who is president, who is voting, a defection or two from his Republican from his Republican members.

And then we have the man who's not to be seen, Tom Kane Jr.

of New Jersey, has been out missing votes since March 5th.

So it is unclear where he is.

All this is circling at a time when Congress has a lot to do.

They have to, this upcoming week, reauthorize a surveillance law.

They have to work on the farm bill.

And they have to, they are likely going to vote on this large reconciliation package I've been mentioning that would provide funding for ICE and CBP.

So there's a lot going on and we don't know where Mr.

Kane is.

Turns out you spoke to some of our Republican congressional representatives.

They don't know where he is either.

They're reaching out.

Rye, let me just ask you quickly.

It looks like offshore wind in New Jersey.

We knew it was dead, but is it really dead?

Some news coming out of the BPU this week.

- Yeah, so we knew that the projects, all the projects that had been approved during the Murphy administration were delayed or dead or really dead.

But there was this transmission project that would bring the power from offshore wind ashore.

And that now has been nixed.

And that was really something that had continued even though there were some questions about, do we really need this?

Do we really want this?

And finally, it's over.

And that sort of sets back the preparation for if there's another wave of interest in offshore wind, there won't be sort of the ready-made way to bring that power into the grid.

So that's a big, yet another big sign that this industry just really isn't what a lot of people hoped.

Yeah, and of course, you know, under a new presidential administration, that could be possible, but we know right now the Trump administration has said that it wants to stop all offshore wind projects.

We have to leave it there, but Jelani, Ry, Ben, thank you so much for being with us today.

You can follow me on Instagram @joannagagisNJ and go ahead and scan that QR code on your screen to see more episodes of Roundtable.

For all the crew here at Gateway Center in downtown Newark, I'm Joanna Gagis.

Thanks for being with us and have a great weekend.

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