Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club morning. Everybody is the j n V.
Jess hilarious, Charlamagne to God, we are the Breakfast Club.
We got a special guest in the building.
Yes, indeed, us representative for New Jerseys eleventh Congressional district and she's running for governor, mikey Ryl.
Welcome, Thank you so much.
And for the record, we're all residence of New Jersey, so we will be voting. So, oh, okay, we're having.
This composition constitu Jersey's been raised it.
Well, how are you feeling?
First and foremost, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling very tired, but you know, it's just that time. We have twenty one days today until the election, so it's that final sprint now New Jersey.
I was gonna say New Jersey transit this morning, finally it looks like people can go back to work.
The strike is over, yes, but the traffic this morning was worth so maybe people weren't quite ready to go back to their normal transit options. So hopefully hopefully now they're there.
Now, what was your involvement with with the negotiation? Were you involved with the negotiations with that were you involved with getting that deal done at.
All, or.
Yes, I did everything.
Now I was at my involvement was just constantly touching base with NJ Transit and the unions and just saying, look, guys, the commuter I mean, this is the commuters can't take it, like like, yeah, we got to get people to work, and it just you know, you guys are in New Jersey, it feels like everything is falling down.
I mean Newark Airport, airport.
I mean when you just can't even count on an airport, an international airport, one of the most trafficked you know, airports in the nation that that can't function, and then your train line, I mean, everything just starts to feel like it's falling apart.
Here. You said something other data.
You know, it's so simple and I can't believe more like the officials aren't saying it, but you were criticizing the lack of urgency.
In regards to Newark Airport.
That's what I've understand, Like, what are we just waiting for something bad to happen?
It appears so because it really the Secretary of Transportation just doesn't seem to be.
Moving on this.
And again, you know, I'm a former Navy helicopter pilot. I've flown in really crowded airspace, So in that DC airspace where that helicopter crash happened, I flew through there as we were taking people up from Norfolk to the Pentagon. And I'm telling you ninety seconds outage and crowded airspace where you've got you know, people on visual flight rules and then you've got people landing. That's a lifetime. And
the fact that that's happened more than once. The fact that the Secretary of Transportation has canceled his wife's flight out of Newark and yet hasn't surged personnel in, hasn't said, here's how we're going to make the system more redundant so it doesn't keep breaking down.
Hasn't come up with a plan of attack for this.
Again, it's just the constant and competence from this administration that just not doing the basic work of government is what, as much as anything, is just putting everybody at risk.
Ye.
Also, I was staving from him this morning when he said, now is the time to install the state of the art, you know, air traffic control system in the Newark. But my thing is, like, you're the Secretary of Transportation, Like do it? Get it done?
Yeah?
What is he just saying that hoping somebody does it? What the hell? I totally agree with you.
And if that's going to take a minute, what are we going to do in the meantime. We can't just say, Okay, we're just going to take this airport down for the summer. What's the plan until that is installed?
Is it worth shutting down now? A get right? Now?
Well no, we don't want to shut down Nework care for it. I mean imagine, like just think about Okay, people have you know, kids that are graduating, people have parents that they have to go see that are sick, people have to get aroun be all a business.
Yeah, I'm a comedian. I travel every weekend. I get on the plane and fly somewhere every Friday. So just and I don't know, I love Newark normally, Yeah, like I do. I go way out of my way not to have to fly to JFK.
Lady. So the idea that somehow we're just going to take that out of service, no, we can.
We got to fix it. We got to fix the problem.
But in the meantime, like you don't want people to die and that's when you know, we had a male Brocca here yesterday and he was saying that what this morning, and he was saying that people walked off, like you know, air traffic controllers left becuse they didn't want to be responsible for somebody potentially dying.
Well, they also in the ninety second delay, I mean, air traffic control is really difficult, and they you know that that was traumatic to be responsible for people's lives to have flights in the air and you can't talk to them and just be watching them, you know, as you're like crap. So they are now on trauma leave, many of them. So they are down twenty percent. And then we saw the reporting they're supposed to have eleven to fourteen air traffic controllers and they had two or three.
That makes no sense, it it really doesn't. And this is why we need strong democratic governors. I mean, it
really is why I'm running for governor. It is so critically important now because as governor, we need to then have partnerships with our colleges and universities that fast track people through the air traffic control training and then just start to search them in So governors are now having to take on the work that traditionally we left to the federal government, because this is a federal government in free fall.
So if you were a governor of New Jersey, now would I don't know what you did class state of emergency at newi Gairport, Like, what would you do?
So this is the problem as we start to reorient our system, right, So what I would do is immediately add up a stand up a program so we could start to train people, send them to that, fast track them through the air Traffic Control school down in Oklahoma, get them back as quickly as possible, and start to develop this out and have that so that we have our own pool of people.
But again, you don't anticipate.
That.
You don't anticipate that the federal government is just going to start abdicating all responsibility for things. So this training pipeline would take time to get them trained up. But yes, I declare state emerging and get that done quickly as quickly as possible, so that we could stand this up and at the same time be working towards Okay, what's it going to take then? If you are going to put in place the equipment that's going to be necessary to run these and as you know, how does a
governor do that. I'm at this point, I am for a hugely expansive role for a governor because we can't count on our federal government, and that's I make even that statement coming out of my sounds crazy.
But how do we avoid the facts in reality?
I wanted to ask something that you said earlier. You said that you were in the Naval Academy, and at the time you were at the Naval Academy, there weren't many women at the Naval academy. So what made you want to join the Naval academy? And what did you think when they banned Maya Angelou's books from the Naval Academy.
So I wanted to fly from the time I was in elementary school. My grandfather was a pilot World War Two, and I went to my dad in about the fifth grade, said I want to be a pilot. And he said, well, that's really expensive. You have to go in the military if you want to get that training. And I said, okay, I'll go to the Air Force Academy. And my dad goes, you don't want to go to the Air Force Academy, that's new. You want to go to one of the cool ones.
He said, you want to go to West Point or the Naval Academy.
I said, don't want to fly, because I think the Navy flies, because you know, my family, my grandfather was in service, but my parents weren't.
So they said, okay, I'm going to the Naval Academy.
And he said, well, I don't know if they let women go to the Naval Academy. And I think as much as my desire to fly, being told that they somehow weren't letting women go to the I think as much as anything that made me say, well I'm going.
There, right, I'm doing that.
And then he said, well, I don't know if they let women fly. And so when I went, women in the military were sort of like a second class citizenry because they weren't able to go into combat. And if you're in the United States military, that's a second class role. That's the difference between saying like, okay, we're going to put you on a destroyer or we're going to put you on a hospital ship. Right, who's going to make admiral?
And so even the role that women there was a separate track for women that was called General Unrestricted Line girl that was that was.
The pathway for women.
So opening up combat to women actually changed everything, and so it took time. But the first person, the first woman who is the commanding officer of an aircraft carrier, came from my class. That would have been unthinkable. In fact, the first woman chief of Naval Operations we just had Lisa frank Ketty. And when I was at the Naval Academy, the Chief of Naval Operations spoke to the Brigade of midshipmen and was directly asked, when will women serve on subs?
His response, not in my lifetime and he got a standing ovation from the Breid of Midchimen. So this change I saw in my lifetime was amazing and validating because none of us want to be treated like crap. Like I didn't go to the Naval Academy to be treated like crap, so that you know, one day my daughter could be treated like crap. Right, you do this because you think you're breaking barriers. You think you're making life better and setting the table for future generations to do better.
And that's why you go through some of that. And I thought it was working. And now we have this president and one of the very first things he did was fire the black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, c Q. Brown, and the woman chief of Naval Operations. That was almost day one. And then he goes after the Naval Academy and so he seems to think it's more dangerous to read Maya Angelou than Adolf Hitler's mindcom and again and again and again, attacking the service of women,
attacking the service of people of color. And so here you feel, so, what have I accomplished? Right, all that fight, you know, all that women have gone through, to see that momentum, to see it working. I mean, I think that's why I was able to become a member of Congress, because I had the opportunity to take on roles in the military that were seen.
As powerful roles as opposed to a girl.
And I think that's what led to me being able to compete and have my resume and do this job. And so to see all that being attacked in this way is really it's really disgusting and it's heartbreaking.
What about Pete Hexef, you know, a Secretary of Defense. He said, I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.
It hasn't made us.
More effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.
He said that on a podcast hosted by son Ryan Oh.
I sit on the House Arm Services Committee.
I'm well aware of what that network says.
And he seems to think that if you can just do one hundred push ups that you are ready to lead. I mean, I think if there is ever an example of why everything he said on that podcast is completely incorrect, he is a living.
Embodiment of that.
This is a guy who projects tough guy imagery, who does his hundred push ups, and who can't lead worth I mean, that guy has run more organizations into the ground and now he's working to do the same thing at the Pentagon. He has put out classified information on an unsecure platform in a way that would get like a petty officer court martialed. And he's the Secretary of Defense and he has no accountability for himself or others. And he also said that he just wanted a meritocracy.
I'm thinking to myself, yeah, me too, me too. I'd like to see a meritocracy and not your butt in this office. Because he has been the most incompetent secretary of defense this nation has ever seen, as he preaches. Oh, you know, others can't compete.
You run of a governor in Jersey.
What's the first thing you do to show that this isn't like like you're just not another politician chasing a title.
Yeah.
I think that's why I talk about my background. I think we've gone through a lot of debates and forms.
I think my colleagues are a little sick of hearing about my background.
I joke, but I say it all the time because I think having that lifetime of service. I tell you, I took my first oath at the Constitution when I was a teenager.
So is the Constitution. I feel like we're in a most constitutional society.
I took a note, raised my hand.
No.
Uh, yeah, I hear you.
But that centers me, and it centers my work, and it centers my belief and what this country should be. And so uh I talk about that background in the Navy, at the US Attorney's office, in Congress and having four kids, so I care about the future. I talk about that a lot to show people this is not some Johnny
Come Lately ideal I have that. Suddenly I'm worried about x y Z. This is my life's work, and serving people is what I love to do and I care deeply about and what I and I think I'm pretty good at it and can really affect change in a powerful way. And that's what I'm running for governor because I know, I say, in the Navy, we're trained to run to the fight, right and to run to the crisis. I think the frontlines of what we've got to do in this country that's taking place at the state level.
It's taking place.
With powerful democratic governors, expanding state power, figuring out a pathway through this As something unforeseen happens, as the President of the United States attempts to ruin the economy of the United States to enrich himself and attempts to attack all of our rights and freedoms, we need strong democratic leadership in the state houses. And that's not going to be enough. It's not enough to say I'm going to fight Trump. That's necessary, but you also have to then
lay out a path of democratic, competent governance. Because there's a lot of people out there that rightly would say, Mikey, that's great, I want you to fight Trump, but you're also running for governor of the state of New jerse and I can't afford anything. Nobody around here can buy a house, Nobody can afford their rental prices, Utility costs are set to go up, and healthcare is a mess.
So that's great.
I want you to fight Trump, but I also want you to fight for me and govern And I think sometimes as we get drawn into the fight against what Trump is doing, we also don't talk about the ways in which we're actually envisioning governing in a better path. And I think now more than ever, as we see this complete and competent some of which we've talked about today coming from the federal government, competent democratic government. I know that doesn't sound sexy, but that is going to
be really, really powerful. And so I believe that I need to lay out a vision if I'm running for governor of two things, how I'm going to protect this state against the cast from Washington, but also I need to lay out a vision of how your life is
going to be better because I'm governor. And I think that's a piece that sometimes as we get caught up in our fears from what the future might hold as we take down the Constitution, we don't always talk about how we're going to actually impact people on the ground, how we're going to impact their lives.
Talk about, you know, fighting against Trump and going against them. But some people will say to get things done, you have to work with Trump in his White House somehow, some way. So you wouldn't work with Trump and his White House at all.
Look if Duffy comes in here and says, Okay, I'm going to work with you to Actually I'm trying to think of something that I can say on radio.
Because unscrew up.
What you have, what you need the federal government right you do as a governor, we.
Need to find as many pathways as we can. But I think when people say they want you to work with Trump, because a lot of a lot of people say I want my governor to work with Trump, what they mean is I want you to stop him from doing this crazy stuff. I want you to fix the the tariff situation that's making my small business go under. I want you to go talk to him because we need the Canadians to come to Wildwood because we're a
tourism industry. I need you to make sure he's not arresting a family member of mine in the middle of the night without charges. I need you to make sure that they're not cutting funds to medicate in the Department of Education.
So I need you to go work with Trump. That is fair.
What's I think a false proposition is if you think that by saying, Okay, I'm just going to give up on, you know, diversity programs in my state, like I'm not going to try to get people in my state to succeed that aren't already there because I'm working with Trump. That's a false proposition because that's when the bullying starts, because that's when it's you know, what I say is it's not as if these law firms that have caved to Trump, or these schools that have caved to Trump.
That's not going to be the last ask.
It's not a one off thing like Okay, I'm in a cave today and then he's to leave me alone and I'm just going to run my game. That's not how that goes. I say, He's like that bully on the playground, Right, So you give your lunch money on Monday, they're coming back Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
No parent says, just give your lunch money, Just work with them.
I mean that no parent has ever said to their kid getting bullied on the playground, just work with them, just give in.
That's not how you deal with this.
And I think it's a false trap to suggest that somehow it's the responsibility of a governor to undermine our values to get some thing from the federal government. The federal government is supposed to be working in service of the people this country, not the state government working in service of Trump. I think that's a false idea.
Yeah, I just wonder, I'm just asking.
I wonder how effective it is for you know, officials on the state level to kind of, you know, curate their care campaigns around being anti Trump, because you're not going against Trump on the ballet. You might be going against people who support Trump, but I feel like you'll be aiming at more the people you're going at on the state level.
Yeah.
No, I think it's really important again to lay out the actual vision on the state level. Like I've gone over and over and over all the ways in which we can build houses and drive down costs, how we need to build out a clean energy future in New Jersey that actually increases capacity, drives down cost and drives down carbon, fix our broken healthcare system again and again and again, because we know people need to hear that.
And then also pointing out to your point, I think that Jack Chittarelli, the Republican, you know, the I think the Republican opponent in this race, has basically, according to Trump, become one hundred percent Mega. Has said himself he's not going to oppose any of Trump's executive orders, so these could be things like taking down Social Security, and has said that he is going to put in place an abortion band and defund Planned Parenthood.
So I do think it's important.
To go after the actual people on the ground because we know that if Jack Cheddarelli's the next governor, New Jersey just becomes a little annex of Washington. So much like mar A Lago, we now have Bedminster and that's kind of white House two point zero, which is not what we need in New Jersey.
And as governor, what will you do specifically for the black and brown community, what are your thoughts and goals for our community?
So I think that comes I mean, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but that comes back to housing too, largely because that's the number one thing I hear from the black and brown community is housing, and we know how important it is. I think housing is critical to building generational wealth. And I say that
just looking. You know, even on my own team. One of the guys on my team is dad died unexpectedly when he was young, and it was their equity and their home that save the family as they kind of went through that change. So we can see that operating on the ground. And we know in New Jersey that seventy percent of white families own their own home and under forty percent of Black families. So that's why I think driving down the cost of housing, but then beefing
up that first time home buyers program. Right now it's at at fifteen thousand to help defray the cost of the down payment. But you guys are from Jersey, you know that's not going to cut it, right Like with cost of housing right now, fifteen thousand is just not going to help you afford that home. So that's going to be really important. The other issue that comes up
a lot in the black community's black maternal health. And so I held a maternal health roundtable and I was talking to a woman who was actually a patient advocate in the hospital she was giving birth in and even as a patient somebody who helped other patients in the hospital, she did not get the care she needed as somebody, and you know, she was told, oh, you'll be fine, you know this hospital, but she still did not receive the care. She had two miscarriages before she took her
basically took her healthcare into her own hands. And was it was, you know, from what she was talking about dictating then to doctors, no, I want you to do this, No, I want you to do this. But how many people, you know, I'm not one of them, have the background in medical care and.
Have the access.
I mean, she worked in a hospital to do that to say, Okay, I'm doing all my own research and I'm basically becoming, you know, somebody who's well versed in medicine so I can take on my own care.
That's not the normal.
So that's why I think it's really important to have resources pushed in and the.
Black Caucuses highlighted this.
And Shavon de Sumpter has worked on this, the First Lady of New Jersey has made this a real issue and so putting in resources and communities that need care like Trent is really important, but it's sort of necessary but not sufficient because you can't just build a resource center and then keep doing things the same way and expect different results. So that's why I think getting dulas in and midwives in is important because adula could be
your advocate all through the birth process. And I really you guys seem like really nice guys and maybe are really tough. But it's been my experience in the healthcare system that women are just a lot tougher.
And so we go in.
A last through birth and she salutlates them.
She's amazing, But women don't advocate for themselves like they should in healthcare. So I have learned over time. But now I'm in my fifties, like, this was not something I was doing in my twenties and thirties. So when people say, and when I was giving birth, so people say to you, like, what's your pain level? Is it one to you know, tens the worst ones the worst? And I'm always like, I guess it's like a three.
You know.
I've now learned that if I'm going to get any attention whatsoever, I'm going to be like it's like a ten.
Yeah, I'm always a ten. I'm like, it's a ten. They're like I'm like it's a ten.
Uh huh, Like come on, That's what ADULA can do, is like, Okay, this isn't right. You you know, I know you can take a lot, but but this isn't right and you need more care and I need a doctor in here, or you need some anesthesia or you know, let's get this going because this is going to get repres.
They talk for you because you're busy in pain trying to give birth. But dulas are expensive too, like they they're not affordable for everyone, you know what I mean.
So right, So that's why I'm supporting the governor.
Yeah, the governor has a program to have Medicaid cover dula's and I think that's really important. And then as governor, I'm also going to make sure that we are pushing through certified dulas into the system because many hospitals, you know, people, it's a change in the system and systems don't like change. So making sure that that's and then not stopping there. So that helps with the actual birth process. But we also know that a lot of things can happen in
that first year. There's a lot of postpartum depression, for example. And and when you know you give birth, it's a really weird experience because you're with your ob right before, as you're pregnant, you're with this ob kind of NonStop, and they're monitoring everything. I mean, you're getting every test known to man. Your blood pressure is being taken every minute,
and you know, I should get really closer there. It feels like hourly, right, you're doing all this stuff, and so then you give birth and.
That person just disappears. It's not there. There's god, I've right, it's so weird. And suddenly you're asking you're like talking to a nurse, you're talking to.
The pediatrician and you're like, I'm really like and they're like, oh yeah, I don't know. They're taking care of the baby suddenly. And so if you're struggling, if you're having postpartum depression, if you're even starting to hemorrhage in a way that you're not sure because you're supposed to have some level, all of this is suddenly just on you.
And so that's why again having the check ins, having telehealth so people can do remote monitoring and making sure that somebody is keeping out because the thing you do when you're depressed, right is you isolate yourself, and so you need to make sure or we need to make sure that we have people pushing in to say how you doing, how are you feeling, have you gone for
your check? Iup, have you done this? And then some of the basic like stuff that's just basic, like here's a stroller, get out of the house, you know, here's how you do that, or or look, I'm just gonna come and I'm gonna help you pack a diaper bag and I'm gonna help you get out of the house with this newborn, because you know, four kids. By my fourth kid, I was like taking a newborn, throw them in a baby carrier. I was living in the city of the time, throwing them.
In a baby carrier.
I had like a couple diapers in my person. I'm ready to go that first kid. I mean, I have my husband come with me, Pete Jersa, I have this huge stroller, I have everything known to me in the diaper bag, and I'm like a nervous treck like I don't know, you know what am I doing. So having somebody kind of say, hey, look I've done this before, You're fine this baby's fine, do this, We're okay. You know that too, I think is a really important piece of this and what many people in this space have
been advocating for. And so as governor, I'm gonna make sure we also have that first year program to make sure people are successfully having outcomes to even in the first year, not just up to giving birth, but the post part of it.
When you talk about you talk about the housing, the black maternal health rate, but you know, you think about Newark, you think about Camden, think about Pattison, Like those cities have been overlooked by Trenton for years. So how you're gonna make sure you're agenda doesn't just serve the suburbs and it hits those hoods like Newark, Pattison, and Canden.
Ironically, Trenton has been overlooked by Trenton for years as well. So I think as you're making sure that we're building out the state, and really a big agenda of mine is to build houses, and by housing, I mean all means of property that a person can develop ownership over. So as we're building out, I think pushing into places like Newark and Patterson and trent and building out like Trenton, for example, is a great place to start to build out.
In their heyday, I think one hundred and ninety thousand people now they're down to about eighty thousand, So that's a great place to build. They have the capacity which a lot of areas of our state don't. You can build densely. They have a great transportation system, but that you need to push in resources you need to address. And each town that you're mentioning has slightly different issues that you know would need to be addressed to help
that town grow and have businesses. So for Trenton, for example, a lot of their problem is that it's the only business in town is the state, and when state workers aren't going to work, then every restaurant goes out of business, you know, if they're not working from the state building. So the state I think needs to take a strong look at like do we need all these office buildings? Can we give some of them up for other business development?
Can we move in because you know, the great thing about a lot of our urban areas is that they have great transportation, and so really building transit orient and development is a great opportunity. But the thing that I think we need to do better as we build out a lot of these cities is create opportunities for ownership. So apartments are really important, right, Like a lot of people I lived in apartments when I was young.
That's great, we need them.
You know, the cost of rentals is incredibly high here, so we need to build more to drive down the cost. But we need condos. We need people to be able to start to develop that generational wealth.
You've got to be.
Able to afford those Like it's thoughts with you know, putting some money in the pockets that they can't even afford a condo.
So that's why we have to put That's why the First time Homeowner program is so important that we beef up so we put money in their pockets so they can afford at least the down payment. Building out more to supply and demand issue so we can drive down the costs. And then also I think making sure that we fully fund the Affordable Housing Trust Fund because building out some of these places, we have to defray the costs because the cost of building here is too high
and that leads to prices being hiked. And then finally we've got to cut through the permitting and regulatory process that drives up costs. It prevents building because the cost gets so high. So if you look at like Fort Monmouth, great place to build out, right, I think they were bracked and was it twenty eleven maybe that they that they went out a.
Business of being a base.
And so we've had programs in place for years that we've tried to build out. I think too at least two housing programs have fallen under because the permitting just took way too long. This is a place that was built out, that had housing that we just want to repurpose and build denserre housing, and we can't get through the permitting process, so that drives up a whole host
of costs. So that's why the that's why we need to drive down the permitting times and the regulatory times, but also push in to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to defray the cost of building so we can keep those home prices down as well.
What are your thoughts on the congestion price and how it's affecting, especially people from New Jersey, super duper expensive. They're saying that it cuts down traffic, but it's cutting down a lot of business in the cities. What are your thoughts on that, and is there any way to maybe follow lawsuit against New York to stop all this bs.
I am smiling so much because I'm feeling like I'm in a safe space because usually when I'm in New York and somebody brings up congestion, but they're like, why aren't you for congestion pricing, it's so good, I'm like, really, in New York, New Yorkers thought, yeah, well, they don't come, they don't pay it. They're in New York, They're not you know, it's just paying for their transit system.
I was paying for the MTA.
But I always tell them, I'm like, look, no governor, nobody who wants to be governor of New Jersey could ever be for the congestion pricing is it is just basically taking money out of New Jerseyan's pockets and putting it into New York infrastructure like the MTA.
And then they're like, well a lot of New Jersey and schook the subway.
I'm like a lot of New Jerseyans take New Jersey transit, and a lot more would take New Jersey transit if we could run it better, if we had money for it.
And so the congestion pricing. In my mind, if you really want to run a no kidding congestion pricing program and you want people off the street, and that's really your goal and not just you know, using New Jerseys to pay for New York infrastructure, then you put it into New Jersey infrastructure, because then if we could run buses and trains more often, if they were more reliable, then people would take them more and you could get people out of cars. But to do it this way,
to me, is just a cash grab. So I've been very opposed to it.
You think about Lionsgate, you know, coming to New York, and you think about Netflix coming to the mond Mouth, what do you what do you think that's going to do for those communities and how do we have how do we make sure the communities are a part of all of that money that's going to be generated from both of them.
Yeah, I think they provide a bunch of great jobs. I think that's you know, that's awesome, And I think they're really good jobs for New Jerseyans because so many people in New Jersey are in the arts.
We have.
I think in my district I have some of the most members of Iazzi in the nation. So we have just tons of people involved, not just in you know, in acting and directing and producing, but also in camera guys, and you know, the whole host of jobs that go with us, and they're great and they're great union jobs, so they really can provide a really good quality of life for people. So I think it's awesome that they're coming.
I'm really a big supporter. But to your point, we need to make sure that as we're developing these outwards providing pathways. So I was just we had a debate not last night, but the night before, and we had the debate at the the Donald Payne Technical School in Essex County in Newark, and it was amazing.
I mean, this is the kind.
Of school we need for our kids if they're going to get into good jobs. If you guys should go look at it, because I was just walking by and they have this whole.
Studio there to.
Build out, you know, training for these jobs. And so what we need to do then if we're going to ensure that the people in the towns that they're serving, like in Newark, get access to those jobs, making sure that those kids that are getting that great training, I mean, this is like nothing at Montclair High School, right, it was like a huge technical studio looked awesome. We need to make sure that we're working with Lionsgate, for example, and then walking it back and saying, what are you
guys going to need. What's the training you're gonna need. We're going to develop a program it's going to get kids right out of high school if they want into jobs right away. And then you know what we want to develop in New Jersey and what we are developing through our community colleges and other programs. Is this idea that you don't graduate from high school and make a decision that's going to be like the rest of your life. You don't have to decide the rest of your life
the minute you graduate. So in other words, you can either go to college or you can go straight to work at Lionsgate because you have the capacity, and then maybe you have You get there and you get some training and you get a certificate which can be a credit at a community college. You can go back to the community college for some higher training as you develop your career, so that you know, we want to stack the degrees because that's.
What life is now.
Right, Even if you go and graduate from a four year college. The odds of that being like the last training you ever get in your life are really low. So I think having these options for kids as they graduate, and you know, I have four kids. They're all very different. Some are more ready to go off to college than others. Some are ready to just go off and build things, right, and so having that option and then you know, sometimes when you go off and build it, you're like the
people that sort of buildings are kind of entrepreneurs. So oftentimes you can see, like you go there and you're like, hush, this guy's running this company, but I could run it better and I could actually add this to it.
So if I have the opportunity, you know, so is Essex.
County Community College training, you know, offering the exact training. And we see, like I work with Morris County Community the County College of Morris, and we have a lot of base manufacturing that goes on. They're high end base manufacturing. So they offer these training and they work with the manufacturers to get people in and out of those jobs and hire and hire degrees.
So I think that's.
Exactly what we need to do to make sure to your point that those jobs are going to the people in Newark. I think that's exactly working directly with them to kind of walk back, Okay, exactly what training you want, and we're going to train your work for for you loved it.
I was watching the MSNBC, CNN something I forgot which what it what it was, and I saw an ad they may have a rock and rant about you, and it said that you took thirty thousand dollars from Elon Musk's campaign fund and that you made millions on the stock market, tripling your net worth while you were in Congress, and you were fined for unreported trades.
What do you say to that?
So, I've never taken money from Elon Musk.
There were keep you took it and donated to charity.
People from SpaceX, which was one of his they donate. Individuals from SpaceX donated to my campaign, and I yes, donated in kind to a food bank because I wanted people to know where I stood on it. And I have since offered legislation to have Elon Musk drug tested and to get them out of dosing everything. But I uh, I also don't trade individual stacks. It's been widely reported. I've i My husband doesn't trade. We don't trade individual stacks.
I don't think anyone in congres should, quite frankly, and I've been on legislation for that, so I've I don't hold individual stacks.
So when Newsmax claimed that you made seven million dollars from stock trades, what are they talking about?
Newsmax is, first of all, a very questionable organization that is paying multiple fines.
I'm not sure what they're talking about.
I would guess that the root of that would be because some of some of my husband's payments from its company of minits sacks which are immediately and automatically sold. But there is no individual stock trading. It's not as if I go sit on the House Arm Service Committee and suddenly I'm trading Boeing or something. There's none of that. I'm totally out of individual stocks. And I, like I said, I think every member of Congress shall be well, did you.
Make seven million in stock trades at all?
Well?
I I haven't.
I don't believe I did, but i'd have to go see what that was alluding to again.
What kind of came from?
It?
Was a report in the No, I know it's from Newsmax, which again.
I get another one in the Washington Free Beacon, which is a conservative leaning platform. But they said, you had increased from between seven hundred and thirty three thousand, two hundred and nine to oval four million in twenty nineteen and then between four million to thirteen million and twenty twenty four.
So that's what he got, the seven million increase the.
Average they averaged out that. Yeah.
Yeah, Look, I I both my husband and I come from very middle class families. My parents were the first in their family to go to college and his were both teachers, and then we both went into the military and afterwards he got a good.
Job, and I we've been really lucky.
I I really deeply feel like this country has provided an incredible amount of opportunity to us. And that's why I think I feel a response ability to sort of pay that forward. And that's why I think opportunity is so critically important. And I often when I think about what democracy means to me, it means opportunity. And it means not just opportunity for me, like Trump might say, And it doesn't mean opportunity to enrich myself. It means
opportunity for the greatest amount of people possible. I think that's what democracy at its best offers. I love that idea that some political philosophers of democracy have that you should create a society so that if you don't know how you're going to be born, if you don't know if you're going to be a man or a woman, a rich or poor, black or white, you have no idea, You create a society and then get dropped into it.
Because if you create that kind of society, then you're going to create something that gives everybody the best chance at opportunity. And we've had, We've been lucky. And so right now what I see is a president in Donald Trump, who is trying to stop all opportunities, who's taking you know, who's enriched himself and his billionaire cronies, and is continuing to try to do that and then pulling up the ladder of success behind him. And I see that at
every level. And that's why to kind of take it full circle, I think as democratic governor running a state that creates that opportunity, like just with Lionsgate, and creates pathways for opportunity pre distribution of wealth, like giving everyone that opportunity because we know, like my parents weren't in the military. I have to tell you that the kids's parents were admirals, Like they knew that system.
They like they did really well right and all of the instructors knew their dad.
And and so I think creating that that what you're doing when you create opportunity and you're trying to create generational wealth, is you're creating an opperportunity for not just the individual, but that person to then get into a good job and then give their kids the kind of you know, hey, I'm you know, I'm in this job and my buddy is running the summer internship, and I'm going to get you a summer internship. You know, that's the kind of opportunity we're talking about. And that's what
I think we have to create in New Jersey. And that's the exact opposite of what's happening in Washington. And I talk a lot about the military because that's my experience.
But when I'm telling you.
That they're doing what they're doing to women, what they're doing to people of color, it's again trying to like say, these are the people that we see as succeeding, These are the people that are on the pathway to success, and we're pulling up the ladder for everybody else.
Well, make I agree. Hold.
I don't want to be clear though, because I agree with what you're saying. But I just want to be clear because this ad is running and I'm sure you'll be asked about this a million times. You know, if you get an opportunity to just clear it up, I think you should take it now. It says she made millions on the stock market trip her networthwhile in Congress and.
Was then fined for unreported trade. That true or false?
So I think we made money from my husband's job. He gets paid in stocks. They're automatically sold, so I think we made money there. We don't make any individual money stock trading. We are out of all individual stacks because I want people to know that I'm not somehow gaining information and enriching myself because of my work in Congress.
So that's really important to.
Me, and I think every member of Congress should do that, and I'm on legislation for that because those stacks get immediately sold. We do a lot of reporting, and at the end of the year, we did an audit of our reporting and I found I didn't. The lawyers found a stock trade that had been automatically sold, and so we self reported it and paid a fine for that.
But I think that's what that's alluding to. So certainly all of this though, I think I'm one of the most transparent members because everything you know has been reported, and I'm continuing to try to always have transparency there because again, I don't want anybody to think that I owe anything to anyone other than the people I serve, or that I'm somehow enriching myself, because I think people
have really low faith in government right now. I mean, you guys know this, and I think it's really incumbent. The standard has always been in my work in public service, whether it was in the Navy or at the US Attorney's office or in Congress, it's not just impropriety, it's even the appearance of impropriety.
So I try to do.
Things so that people can can check my work and
make sure that there's nothing nefarious going on. And so, yeah, I was surprised by that attack ad because I was with Mayor Baraka at a debate for two and a half hours the night before it came out, and he hadn't raised any of this, and I would have liked an opportunity to sort of discuss it there before that at But we're in the final twenty one days, so I'm sure things will get spicy, but I'm just really working hard to push out what I want to do for people and my positive agenda.
I saw it Amazon poll that had you in the leite, but I also saw that same pole said fifty six percent of all people in New Jersey in the Democratic primary undecided.
You believe that now you got high?
No, we have.
We've been all running really a long time. I think Sean Spiller was running like running a campaign this past summer. Philip has been in for a long time. So no, I don't think there's fifty six percent of the people. And there's been a lot before I even got in and started spending. I think other candidates have spent about forty million in the race, which means and you spend money to communicate, So people have been communicating heavily in this race. If you guys are even if you're in Manhattan,
you've pbably seen the commercials, So I don't. I haven't seen pulling other polling that suggests that seems.
Really high to the Emerson College Ford. That's what the band said too. He said he feels like the pole.
What did you say? I forgot how what he said? You feel like the poll was off? Basically, he said it was off. Basic.
Look, I wanted to ask what makes you different than the other opponents running against you and why should people vote for you?
I want to be snarky because I'm the only woman messages in the medium. No, Look, I really think it is incredibly important that we have a democratic governor in our state that not only can push back against what's going on in why Washington and has federal experience to do just that. And you know the fact that I'm
also former federal prosecutor. Understanding what people like Alena Haba are doing right now and the ways that the federal government's acting to undermine rights and freedoms is really important. And the way they're acting to take away Medicaid and Department of Education funding and understanding what's going on there
is really important. But I also think having an agenda to actually make change in the state, Having somebody like myself who comes from a little bit of a different background than a career politician.
I think that's really important.
Right now because I like to say that there's the right way, the wrong way, in the New Jersey way, and too many people are like stuck in the New
Jersey way. Like even when I hear people talk about, you know, building houses or driving down utility costs, they keep talking about it in the framework of well, this is the frame and place and this is why it's going to be impossible, or this is why it's going to be so hard, or this is why we can't do it, And that just drives me insane because how is there a world where we can't get permitting down
less than four years to build a house? That does not make sense and it doesn't happen in other places, and we know we can do better. So I think having a different kind of leadership to cut through the status quote, to take on entrenched interest, which I think I have a really good capability of doing because I'm not from like entrenched politics in the state. I come from a different type of place. I come from a
proactive place in the military. I've got four kids, so it's not going to be enough for me to sort of make a little change around the edges because their future is at stake, and their future feels really tenuous right now to me. So fighting for my kids, fighting for everyone's kids is incredibly important, and I think that's a different kind of approach and leadership than anyone else in the race offers.
We appreciate you for joining us this morning.
Yeah, man, you got to come back before Joe.
Well, I appreciate you. Guys.
If you do win and become, you know, governor, like I think that you should use platforms like this to talk directly to the people on the regular that affects.
Yes, I just know I'll be too important.
I believe you. I believe.
I will make a commitment right now if I become governor, I will be back on your show if invited.
Absolutely. I don't know why you're worry about the traffic.
You were a helicopter, you might as just fly to helicopters.
Yeah, I don't know what I'm thinking.
Mikey Sharrell. Ladies and gentlemen, she's running for governor. Get out there and voters to Breakfast Club.
Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club