Mikey Sherrill (3:03)

Hi. Thanks so much for having me. This is great.

Chelsea Handler (3:06)

Absolutely. I watched your episode for Pod Save America too. I loved you on that and I love those guys. They're friends of mine.

Mikey Sherrill (3:13)

Oh, good. Yeah, that was a great, great episode. That was a lot of fun to do.

Chelsea Handler (3:17)

I'm very excited for your campaign. And how is everything going? How's everything going in the state of New Jersey right now?

Mikey Sherrill (3:24)

As always, perfect. It's perfect here. Nothing going on here. No, it is. It's a tough fight. We are in a knockdown, drag out fight. I don't think anybody would be surprised to hear that because New Jersey is, shall I say, known for the rough and tumble politics we have that go on here. And I've always been up for it. But my opponent's pretty slimy and has broken the law in several ways and has just really gone after my family in a way that's wholly inappropriate. So that has been a challenge. But you know what? I think in these times, that kind of thing backfires. I think people are kind of sick of career politicians who are slimy and trying to act like they're just, you know, slick guys and will pull out all the stops to get their own way. That's not what people want to see.

Chelsea Handler (4:11)

And Your opponent is 100% MAGA, correct?

Mikey Sherrill (4:14)

Jack Cittarelli, he's 100% MAGA, which he likes to say. That's not me saying that, that's Donald Trump saying that. And he's been pretty clear in showing that to the people of New Jersey. And so he's been in lockstep. And I think here, like just about every state in the nation, we've seen these tariffs drive up cost everywhere. We've seen the attacks on our department of Ed funding, on our healthcare, on even our utility costs. So we're seeing costs go up everywhere. And I have always been sort of known for going against anyone who comes at New Jersey and that includes members of my own party. So I think the demand here in the great state of New Jersey is for a governor that's going to stand up for the people here and not kowtowed anyone, including the president of the United States.

Chelsea Handler (4:58)

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about how a governor does that and what abilities a governor has to stand up to Trump, because we've seen Gavin Newsom do it. We've seen J.B. pritzker do it. We've seen Wes Moore, to a certain degree, do it. So talk to us a little bit about the capabilities that you have to stand up to our president and how states can remain independent and to what degree they can.

Mikey Sherrill (5:22)

Well, a lot of that is the traditional ways. Right. I tell people sometimes, you know, I'm a simple girl. I just want my kids to be able to go to the bus stop without people shooting them or spend a day at school without an active shooter coming into their classroom. So I want good gun safety laws here in New Jersey, and we have some of the best. I want to make sure that the decisions I make about my reproductive health are between myself and my doctor and not myself and Jack Cittarelli, who's proven himself to be in favor of abortion bans. And like the things we're seeing, you know, across the south, where women are dying of miscarriages on operating tables. I just want to get my kids, you know, the mmr, measles, muffs, rubella, vaccines. I don't want an outbreak of measles, a deadly childhood disease here in New Jersey. I don't want babies, as they are across the nation now, dying of whooping cough or pertussis because of rollbacks in our national health. So these aren't, to me, groundbreaking ideas. These are things that most people in New Jersey agree with. And so that's a baseline for what governors can do. All of these things I've just spoken about. But we're seeing some, really some new and innovative ways in which governors are growing state power. So things like Mara Healey and others in this Northeast Coalition. And I know Gavin Newsom's doing it out west to promote national health, to make sure that insurance companies are not backing away from their commitment to provide basic childhood vaccines. And we also see people like Governor Shapiro when Trump came after the Social Security numbers and the license information from the people who vote in Pennsylvania. And Governor Shapiro said no, Trump's taking him to court. He thinks he'll win that, but he said no. But it just chills you to know that all of this personal information in other states is just being turned over. Wholesale to the Trump administration. And so this is where strong governors can really come into play. And you've mentioned several of them who are standing up right now to Donald Trump in this administration. So I think it's so key and so important.

Chelsea Handler (7:26)

And how do you view the tech of it all? You know, all these tech guys basically genuflecting to Donald Trump and being in business with him or bending the knee for him and like, how do we fight back against that state by state?

Mikey Sherrill (7:39)

So I don't think it's a state by state plan. I think it's regional plans. Okay. And so we have really high end research and development that goes on here in New Jersey, like photonics. And I was just talking to someone this morning about the partnership that is in place between New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. And we are going to have to find ways to continue to fund and promote that innovation, despite the fact that the federal government is now attacking innovation. And so I think in a regional way we can really grow our economies, grow our rights and freedoms, and protect our rights and freedoms, and grow opportunity in a way that's different from maybe other states across the nation. And it's already, and I was surprised by this, it's already becoming very clear to people what's going on in this nation. So we've seen 10,000 Floridians move to New Jersey.

Chelsea Handler (8:31)

Oh really?

Mikey Sherrill (8:31)

Which is a reversal of a long term trend. And you know, as you look into some of the data, it looks as if people are becoming increasingly concerned about governors who are not going to provide insurance for vaccines, who are going to wholesale promote abortion bans, who are going to allow the president to ransack everyone's personally identifying information for his own purposes. Again and again we're seeing, I think, people becoming very aware of, of where those states are that are going to actually continue to promote our values, our Constitution and our economy and drive in great innovation for their kids. And that is very contrary to Donald Trump.

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Chelsea Handler (10:19)

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Mikey Sherrill (13:14)

I am going to do that by driving down costs for families here and really focusing on the things we can do in New Jersey such as putting a rate freeze on utility hikes so all of the mismanagement of our utility production and our power production here in New Jersey isn't dumped on ratepayers and families. Ensuring that we are driving down the cost of housing, transit oriented development and developing some of the towns in New Jersey that were traditionally thriving and have not been invested in appropriately, like Trenton, like Atlantic City so we can continue to drive down housing costs and also make New Jersey work better for people just next door. Governor Shapiro cut small business permitting times by 90%. So that's exactly the kind of government, responsive government I'm going to run. But I also just want to touch a bit. You know what, Chelsea, I have just been running in this race as somebody who has a record of serving the people of the state, who has a record of success. I was named the most effective member of Congress in only my second term and who has brought a lot to the table for the people I serve. I haven't mentioned people know I'm a mom and they know I'm a woman. I haven't always placed that front center. But this has been really horrible to see what the most incompetent secretary of defense is doing right now because I have to tell you, it hits home. And I was just being Asked recently, because Pete Hegseth, who is that incompetent Secretary of defense who's put classified information out over unclassified systems and giving it to his wife and his brother because he's like, you know, fucking little boy pretending to be the SecDef, is now saying that he wants to move back to the 90s. Now in 1990, Pete Hegseth, I think, was about 10 years old. So he's really. No idea what he's talking about. I was actually entering into the military in 1990, and I am so proud of my military service. Not because of just serving, but because of something I felt like I was building. So the military at that time was not an incredibly welcoming place for women. I remember going to a breakfast with my parents. I was with my dad. And that morning, the Washington Post had reported that a female midshipman had been chained to a urinal in a hazing event. The former Secretary of the Navy and future Senator Jim Webb had put out an article years before I entered, but it was still being widely circulated at the Naval Academy entitled Women Can't Fight. And it said, seemed to largely say, because he wanted to go desecrate corpses without women around, that women shouldn't be part of these units. The Chief of Naval Operations, to a standing ovation, stood before the brigade and said, when asked, when will women be serving on subs? He said, not in my lifetime. So it was a tough place. But I will say, too, if you could show competence, if you could just fight hard, if you cared about your country, and you could really make change in the Navy. And we did. By the time I graduated, I graduated with the first class of women eligible for combat on ships and aircraft. A classmate of mine was the CO of an aircraft carrier. We just had a woman who was the superintendent of the Naval Academy, a woman who was the Chief of Naval Operations, the highest ranking women. And now Pete Hegseth is trying to drive out every woman in service, trying to roll back what we've built, what I feel like I have personally had a hand in building. And so, you know, it's a really crappy day for women in service with that incompetent, sexually harassing.

Chelsea Handler (16:56)

Alcoholic.

Mikey Sherrill (16:57)

Alcoholic. Yeah. Guy, as my kids would say, jinx. Really in charge of all this. So it's really offensive today. And I think you're exactly right. So it's important that we have more people serving our country. More women, more. More people of color, more people that represent the people of America so we can gain greater success.

Chelsea Handler (17:19)

Yeah, we're Recording this the day after Pete Hegseth gave his speech to, like, 500 generals, and yesterday with Donald Trump. When you hear something like that and you know that this is exactly the opposite and so antithetical to your commitment to working, you know, in the Navy or in the armed forces, what is your responsibility to stay the course so that you can protect, you know, the people underneath you? Or is your responsibility to stand up, resign, and walk out the door? Like, how do you make that kind of decision, you know, in that position?

Mikey Sherrill (17:52)

I speak to service members. I speak to people at the U.S. attorney's office. I speak to a lot of people in other areas of federal service about this all the time, because a lot of people have decided, whether it's in the FBI or at the U.S. attorney's office or in the military, that there, it is so important to have credible people there in some of these incredibly powerful organizations that impact people's life, impact people's liberty, whether or not they're detained, whether or not they're unfairly prosecuted. And yet, at what point do you become complicit? And I've had these kind of long conversations with people about how you weigh that, and it's a really difficult decision, And I think that's something each person's weighing themselves. Am I still doing good? Am I still protecting the people below me? Am I still protecting US Values? Or now, am I just carrying out something that's really dangerous and that I should not be a part of? And those are really, really difficult decisions to make right now.

Chelsea Handler (18:55)

Yeah, I remember in the first Trump administration wondering what all those guys were doing there. You know what I mean? Like, Mark Milley and these other kind of senior advisors and chiefs of staff, all of these people, like, how could they be supporting this guy? How could they be supporting. And now, in retrospect, when you hear all these guys come forward, you know, they're all like, oh, even John Bolton, who, you know, like, no, we were staying the ship. We were staying the ship.

Mikey Sherrill (19:18)

I never thought we would ever be saying, like, oh, John Bolton.

Chelsea Handler (19:21)

Yeah, he was. He was actually doing a good job. He was doing a good thing. Because now you hear them and you're like, oh, now we're really in trouble. Because now he has this idiot Pete Hegseth, running our military, which is absolutely just. Ashanda. It's unbelievable. What is something that's very basic that you actually miss from your military days?

Mikey Sherrill (19:42)

I miss being 20. That was fun. But it truly was at that time, such a time of the United States was In areas of the world that we traditionally hadn't been in, we'd been very focused on the fight with Russia and the Cold War. And so there had been some forces abroad, but. But I remember getting. I really miss some of the foreign places that I served in and learning about different people, learning about different cultures, and doing so, though, with a bunch of other members of the service. There was a lot of camaraderie there. And I remember just different experiences like that. I remember flying a helicopter, and I was flying with another woman, and the Saudi aircraft controllers would not believe that we were the pilots. So they said, put the other pilot on. So I put her on. And then they said, you guys aren't pilots. And, you know, we're working each other.

Chelsea Handler (20:34)

We're really not flying nurses.

Mikey Sherrill (20:36)

Yeah. Really not sure what to do.

Chelsea Handler (20:37)

Yeah.

Mikey Sherrill (20:38)

Like, you know, we're the only two pilots on this aircraft right now. I don't have anyone else to put on the radio with you. You know, I remember serving in Bahrain, and I remember this experience where there were a bunch of expats. So they had this rugby game, and I'm. There's a fence, and they're playing rugby, and then over the top of the fence, I'm seeing the humps of these camels, just all kind of. And it was this really weird contradiction. So I miss that kind of seeing the world and speaking to people about why. You know, I remember speaking to a Pakistani business owner about why he was in Bahrain and what had brought him there and all those kind of experiences. I really miss.

Chelsea Handler (21:17)

Yeah, I mean, there must have been. There must have been some things that you've taken with you, right, from your experiences in the Middle east, in Europe. You were in London for a while, I don't think. You were in London on service, right, or. No, you were.

Mikey Sherrill (21:29)

No, I was there serving.

Chelsea Handler (21:30)

Oh, you were at the.

Mikey Sherrill (21:31)

That was where. The US Headquarters of the European fleet. The. I'm sorry, the naval fleet was at the time.

Chelsea Handler (21:37)

What was your impetus for going into the Navy?

Mikey Sherrill (21:40)

So this is what I. I sort of warn parents sometimes. Like, be very careful what you're saying to your children. Because I was having this conversation with my dad when I was in the fifth grade, and I cannot emphasize enough that I am 1000% sure my father was paying zero attention to this conversation. Like, I think he was. He used to make his own Christmas tree stands. I have no idea why somebody wouldn't buy a Christmas tree stand, because it was always this really. He was always, like, you know, really angry about it. Because it never worked very well. And so, you know, why you wouldn't just. But he would like be hammering these two by fours into the bottom of the tree to make this stand. So I'm out on there, he's making this weird Christmas tree stand and he's hammering away and I'm talking to him and he said, well, what do you want to do? And I said, you know, I want to be a pilot like grandpa. And he said, oh, well, that's really expensive. If you want to fly, you have to go in the military. And I said, okay, well, I'll go into the Air Force. Because my grandfather had been Army Air Corps. He goes, ah, you don't want to go to the Air Force Academy. I mean, that's kind of new. You want to go to one of the cool ones. You either want to go to West Point or the Naval Academy. And I said, oh, I'm going to the Naval Academy. He said, why don't you? I don't know if they have, you know, pilots. And I go, I'll find out. I said, you know, that's what I'm going to do. And he said, well, I don't think they take women. He said, I don't know if they take women and I don't know if women fly in the Navy. And you know, this is kind of one of those things I talk a lot about with people around New Jersey, because to me, this is what we're fighting right now. Because when my father told me he didn't know if women could go to the Naval Academy or he didn't know if they could fly in the Navy, I knew that I could figure out a pathway to that. Because everything I had been taught up until that point was that I could do anything, was that this country continued to open up opportunity so that whether it was my parents or my teachers or I always tell people Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday morning cartoons, I was told I could create these pathways or that this country provided that kind of opportunity. And I just see all of that being attacked every single day by the Trump administration. So whether it's clearing women out of the military, clearing black service members histories off of military websites, whether it is attacking healthcare or attacking Pell Grants, or attacking all those programs we have so people can get more opportunity, attacking research and development, attacking every means of opportunity. And I just look at this and it just reminds me a lot of us as we were coming up. There was, I don't know if you remember, Madeleine Albright said, there's a certain place in hell for women who don't support other women. And I just remember sometimes coming up when it was so new to have women there and you would say, oh, the worst kind of person is somebody who climbs the ladder of success and pulls that ladder up behind them. And here we're just seeing that in the Trump administration at every turn, in every way, capping opportunity right now for people.

Chelsea Handler (24:44)

And what is your advice to our listeners who are against this administration, who want to protest? Like, what are the most effective ways to demonstrate your right to speak out against this? Like, in your opinion?

Mikey Sherrill (24:58)

So I think about this a lot, as you can imagine. And I do think, you know, we have no Kings Day coming up. That's going to be very important. Get into the streets and advocate for the things you believe in. And I will tell you, and your listeners are going to. I'm a little biased, right. I'm in this tough race right now in New Jersey, but there are only two statewide races in the entire nation in Virginia and New Jersey. And these two races could either be a huge mandate against the Trump administration, show that the people of New Jersey, the people of Virginia do not agree with where we are headed in this country, or they could give support to this administration. So, you know, to the extent people have time, go to mikeysharrill.com sign up, come to New Jersey, come knock on doors, sign up for phone banking, text banking, chip in money. Because right now we are doing everything we can to get the word out on the campaign. So anything you can do right now in New Jersey, I think this is really the race setting the table for everything that's to come.

Chelsea Handler (26:06)

Great.

Mikey Sherrill (26:06)

Great.

Chelsea Handler (26:07)

Okay. Well, I will go and make a donation as well to mikeysharrill.com right now as we speak. Mikey, it was wonderful speaking with you. Thank you so much for being here and good luck with everything. And I will be there to campaign with you whenever you need me.

Mikey Sherrill (26:22)

I love it. I don't know if your listeners know what a good Jersey girl you are, Chelsea.

Chelsea Handler (26:27)

I'm a Jersey girl.

Mikey Sherrill (26:28)

You're welcome anytime. Thank you. Than.

Chelsea Handler (26:31)

Thank you. Have a wonderful day.

Mikey Sherrill (26:33)

Thanks, guys. Thanks so much.

Podcast Producer/Announcer (26:35)

Genuflecting to lower one's body briefly by bending one knee to the ground, typically in worship or as a sign of respect used in a sentence. Swifties thought Travis Kelce was genuflecting to Taylor before realizing he was actually proposing genuflecting.

Chelsea Handler (26:54)

I just announced all my tour dates. They just went on sale this week. That's called the High and Mighty Tour. I will be starting in February of next year, so I will be touring from February through June. I haven't added second shows yet, but we probably will be to some of these. So go get your tickets now. If you want good seats and you want to come see me perform, I will be on the High and Mighty Tour.

Podcast Producer/Announcer (27:19)

Do you want advice from Chelsea? Write in to dearchelseapodcastmail.com find full video episodes of Dear Chelsea on YouTube by searching eercelseipod. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad Deckert Executive Producer Kathryn Law.

Mikey Sherrill (27:35)

And be sure to check out our.

Podcast Producer/Announcer (27:36)

Merch@Chelsea handler.com.

Chelsea Handler (27:42)

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Mikey Sherrill (28:18)

That's hillspet.com iheart America is changing and.

Chelsea Handler (28:23)

So is the world.

Mikey Sherrill (28:25)

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global story. Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

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