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- [00:01]
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- [00:30]
Ben
I'm joined by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. Governor, the interim United States Attorney in New Jersey, Alina Haba, went on Fox and she called you out by name yesterday. You may have seen that. I want to show you the clip and then get your response to it. Let's, let's play the clip.
- [00:46]
Alina Haba
Do know we know that the governor has on his website currently do's and don'ts for his local state of law enforcement. Those do's and don'ts instruct them not to cooperate with illegal immigrants who have administered administrative warrants that have been issued by the court after due process, saying that they are no longer welcome here. They have gone through the court system. They are to be deported. It is instructing them to go against our federal rules, our executive orders, and I am unfortunately going to announce on your show tonight, Sean. And I want it to be a warning for everybody that I have instructed my office today to open an investigation into Governor Murphy, to open an investigation into Attorney General Platkin, who has also instructed the state police not to assist any of our federal, and they list our federal agencies that are under my direction, the FBI, the dea, all these individuals that are trying to clean up our streets in New Jersey not to cooperate, that will no longer stand. Pam Bondi has made it clear, and so has our president, that we are to take all criminal, violent criminals and criminals out of this country and to completely enforce federal law. And anybody who does get in that way, in the way of what we are doing, which is not political, simply against crime, will be charged in the state of New Jersey for obstruction, for concealment, and I will come after them hard. Those investigations will start immediately.
- [02:15]
Ben
Governor, a federal prosecutor, interim United States attorney Alina Haba says she's coming at you hard and she announced on Fox a criminal investigation of a state. Governor, what's your reaction to that?
- [02:28]
Phil Murphy
Well, Ben, for whatever reason, I missed my normal Sean Hannity show last night, so forgive me, that's the first time I've seen the cl, although I read about it, listen Let me just tell you what has been in place since we first came into office. We are guided by something called an immigrant trust directive. And let me just say, by the way, by many metrics, gun fatalities, shootings, serious crimes, New Jersey is among, if not the safest state in America. We go after criminals hard, period, full stop, regardless of their immigration status. What we don't do is we don't go after somebody for jaywalking or where there's no probable cause of a, of a crime. And we're very clear about that. And by the way, if it's the former and there are immigration issues, we cooperate regularly, frankly, daily with federal authorities. Again, we, we are. If you're a criminal in New Jersey, we're coming after you. And if there's an immigration angle to that, we'll work with the feds for sure. But the reverse is not true, that we're going to go after somebody just because they're crossing the street. Law enforcement in New Jersey is obsessed with bringing justice on crimes and against criminals. We're not in the immigration business. If we need to work with immigration authorities, federal authorities, we absolutely do. I would probably say even daily, it's a little bit like saying, frankly, this is a simplified version. Law enforcement doesn't fight fires. There are firefighters for that. So we try to not cross those wires. But we are vigilant about crime in New Jersey. And as a result, we have, I believe, the safest state in America.
- [04:17]
Ben
And a lot of that has been built on a past of state and federal partnerships and task force to get the bad guys off the street. I mean, people need to realize that one of the most effective ways that you go after the bad guys in the states and the drug dealers and the, and the cartels and people across the country are these relationships. So it's just so odd that the very first action when she's named interim United States Attorney is to flip that upside down, go on Fox, in my view, kind of cosplay, and then be like, I'm going to go tough on the governor. That's not going to help crime.
- [04:59]
Phil Murphy
Yeah, listen, I'll tell you to your point, Ben, about cooperating. Not only do we do it day in and day out, largely through the law enforcement dimension, I personally host an annual dinner of all of our partners, including NYPD, Pennsylvania representatives, Delaware, so our neighborhood, but importantly, FBI, U.S. attorney, Secret Service, aft. We, I personally host that. And we literally sit around. What are you hearing? What am I hearing? Our Department of Homeland Security, the federal Department of Homeland Security, we cherish and value those relationships. And as a result, again, it's another reason why again we're not perfect. We there, there's crime in New Jersey for sure. But it's a big reason why we've been able to to keep crime as low as we have and God willing we'll continue to do so.
- [05:56]
Ben
Let's talk about the economy. Every day seems to be more chaotic than the next. Tariffs on, tariffs off, tariffs increased. Are there tariffs? Are we tariffing penguins? What's happening the next day? I mean here's what just happened in the past 24 hours. The euro and yen surging, US dollar falling. Stock futures were crashing yesterday. Back up and down, up and down. The bond markets are imploding. The 10 year treasury yields are soaring. You've got a business background, you're an ambassador. Business background, two term governor. What do you just make of all of this? This daily chaos? It's in my perspective, it's unlike anything we've seen.
- [06:36]
Phil Murphy
Yeah. And it's in itself inflicted. I'm not a tennis guy, but you know that phrase unforced error? This is a series of unforced errors. It's not that the, that the core principle or objective is off base necessarily a couple. Do we want secure, humane, by the way, enlightened for sure. Do we want a secure borders in our country? Yeah, I think we do. I think folks overwhelmingly voted in that direction and that's something that we've been espousing in New Jersey. Who's for government efficiency? Count me in. I want that in the worst way. In fact, I obviously didn't like the result of the election in November. But one of the silver linings I thought might be, hey, they got a lot of smart tech guys. Maybe there's stuff we can learn from how they're going to approach this. We in New Jersey are aggressively implementing generative AI to do the mundane stuff so we can up not replace but upskill our workers. Stuff like that we're all in for. Do we like the fact that we don't manufacture as much stuff in America as we used to? No. Who could like that? In fact, in New Jersey we're backing a big multi hundred million dollar incentive package to get more manufacturing onshored in Jersey. But it's the execution, Ben. This is the Flintstones executing all of the above. It's not efficiency, it's cruelty. And the markets, the tariff piece, what will that lead to? Broken alliance, by the way, China needs to be called out. I'm not sure this is the way I do it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I would be doing it this way. But they need to be called out and there are other actors out there that need to be called out. But the Canadians don't need to be called out. We are one of 36 states where they're our largest trading partner. They're our best allies in the world. I'm the former U.S. ambassador to Germany. This is one of our best allies in the world, folks that have stood shoulder to shoulder with us for decade upon decade. Let's do this in all of the above. Whether it's the border, whether it's government efficiency, whether it's getting more manufacturing jobs based in America. Let's, let's get the adults in the room and do all of this the right way. What you're seeing, particularly in the past week or so is complete chaos. When you see the ten year bond exploding, folks are telling you inflation's around the corner. When you see markets like a sine curve, that's the opposite of stability. Folks invest in stories that they can see going forward multiple years, including in countries. A strong dollar is in our national interest. You're seeing the opposite of all of that These, these past number of days.
- [09:30]
Ben
Must break your heart though as the former ambassador to Germany to now see the types of statements that are being directed at the European Union and how Germany has to defend itself. Whether it's the new chancellor coming in, Friedrich Merz, or Chancellor Scholz saying we've been betrayed, you know, we have to stand up. We, we can't rely. I mean as the ambassador to Germany, the whole thing was building the greatest relationship. There was great relationships there and now you have them and leadership basically saying America, publicly, America's not reliable. We need to live in a world without them. We don't trust them. Those are the statements coming out, not just there, but across the world.
- [10:11]
Phil Murphy
Yeah. And Ben, it's almost as though that all that came before is now for not in this notion that we can, to use that phrase, put the toothpaste back in the, in the toothpaste container. It's going to be hard if not impossible. I fear you're going to have an every four year clock. Well, who's going to be in that office next? And you're going to see unintended consequences here that are significant, including and heartbreakingly as you said, among our closest allies in the world. It's a complete shame at the moment and I pray that we get a lot less volatility and a lot more trust into the system asap.
- [10:56]
Ben
You know, a lot of attention was on New Jersey during the 2024 election. Trump predicted he was going to win New Jersey. If we're being objective about the data, there were at least some shifts that turned a little bit more. A little bit, you know, more. More red than we're used to, I guess. One, why do you think that was? But two, with all of the chaos that's being taken place with the attacks on Social Security, Medicaid, the gutting of the federal government, attacks on veterans, I could go on and on. It would take an hour. Are you. Are you seeing shifts? What are you seeing on the ground there?
- [11:35]
Phil Murphy
That's a great question. So last year, President Trump shrunk his loss margin by almost 12 points in new Jersey. And it wasn't just New Jersey. You look at New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, New York, California, I believe he shrunk his loss margin by 10 to 12 points across all five of those states. So not unique to us. It clearly emboldened him. I know he thinks he knows New Jersey very well. So his sort of core states of interest, I think, are New York, Florida and New Jersey, where he has a home, where he's been had, casinos in Atlantic City, where he's got family. So he, I think, feels like he knows the state well, emboldened by a smaller loss margin. And we'll see. I think it's a uniqueness to him personally. I didn't see the coattails. I'll give you an example. He won Passaic county, which is pretty shocking, I have to say, but all of the countywide candidates right below him on the ballot, Democrats won handily. We're going to. We're going to know whether it's him or a broader. A broader trend, because New Jersey is one of two states this year, as is always the case after the presidential, along with Virginia, that have a governor's race. So we've got a very contested primary on both sides. Primary is June 10. General election is November. I assume the President will play. I'm not sure on the primary, but I'm certain he'll play in the general. When I first got elected, Ben, he had just had his first year in office. We thought that was chaotic. We obviously weren't anticipating the past two and a half months, but I kind of ran against that chaos and won by two touchdowns. I'm not sure that playbook will apply this year. I think it will for the Democrat, whoever the Democratic nominee is. But these are. We're in unchartered waters to say the least.
- [13:31]
Ben
You know, I do all these shows on how I've felt that a lot of disservice was done by corporate news and normalizing the chaos that took place in the first administration to make us have that men in black magic wand to prevent, to pretend these things didn't happen. And I was like, wait, that first term was not a good one, so stop pretending that it was. But there was a prevailing narrative. But now with the chaos that's taking place with all of that we've seen, have you seen when you travel the state, whether it's Democrats, Republicans, Independents, people who are in political, are you seeing shifts just in your own observations, knowing politics in Jersey probably better than mostly anyone there right now? What are you seeing the moment right now?
- [14:19]
Phil Murphy
Well, as a Democrat, I'd say there's good news and bad news. The bad news is the Republicans are out registering Democrats and they have been, I think, something like 41 straight months. So as a, as a narrow Democratic Party matter, that's very concerning on the other side. And this is, you probably saw this, Ben, around the country, as we saw it in New Jersey. We lost the election in November, all of us stunned, sort of a little bit of a, if not more than a little bit of a deer in the headlights period of time that extended, I think until fairly recently, that has begun to shift. We had these protests on Saturday in New Jersey just like we had them around the country. It reminded me so much so of the 2018 cycle. People coming out of the woodwork. Places were guessing 500 people would show up and three to five thousand folks showed up. So you're starting to see it's taken a while, probably shame on the Democratic Party that it's taken this long. We sure would have liked to see this enthusiasm going into the election, but you're now starting to see it and it's palpable. So I think that that that ground is shifting. Where will this head over the next six to eight months? I think if the chaos and volatility, again, I'm not even arguing with the core principles of more manufacturing, more efficiency, let's have smart borders. I'm okay with all that. But the execution, if it remains at this level of volatility and chaos, I think you're just going to see more and more folks, including folks who are not Democrats, just reasonable Americans coming out of the woodwork and saying, you know what, I didn't sign up for this and I'm not going to stand it any longer.
- [16:09]
Ben
Governor Phil Murphy, thank you so much for joining us. First time on the Midas Touch Network?
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Phil Murphy
I hope not the last, Ben.
- [16:14]
Ben
Well, that's why I was going to ask you what you got planned after. But I figure that's how I'm going to get you on the next. The next one.
- [16:21]
Phil Murphy
Yeah. I don't have a clue. I'm going to come out and buy you a beer in Southern California and get any advice you got.
- [16:26]
Ben
Sounds good. Hit. Subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Love this video. Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram. It's touch. And help US blow past 1 million followers.