← WETSU: a BattleshipNJ Podcast
WETSU: a BattleshipNJ Podcast
Governor Phil Murphy: A Candid Conversation on his Work for the State of New Jersey
00:25:51
Loading summary
Transcript38 lines
- [00:00]
Marshall Spivak
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Governor Phil Murphy
Quarters. All hands, man your battle stations.
- [00:12]
Marshall Spivak
Welcome to wetsu, a Battleship New Jersey podcast. I'm your host, Marshall Spivak, CEO and Executive Director of the Battleship New Jersey Museum of Memorial. Today's episode is sponsored by Elec825, the Labor Employer Cooperative of Operating Engineers Local 825, whose skilled members were instrumental in the recent dry docking of America's most decorated battleship. It's a tremendous privilege to welcome the 56th Governor of the State of New Jersey, the Honorable Phil Murphy, to the WETSU podcast. Since taking office in 2018, Governor Murphy has been a steadfast advocate for New Jersey's nearly 400,000 veterans and active duty service members, expanding critical benefits, strengthening support services, and reaffirming New Jersey's standing as one of the nation's most welcoming states for those who have worn or who wear the uniform. Under his leadership, New Jersey has made historic investments in expanding statewide access to veterans services, working to functionally end veterans homelessness, and so much more. In addition to serving as Governor, he holds another distinguished title, Commander in Chief, New Jersey National Guard, where he leads more than 8,400 citizen soldiers and airmen across multiple bases, armories and training facilities. During the Governor's time in office, the Guard has operated at its highest operational tempo in modern history, deploying to missions at home and around the world. In March 2024, the governor gave the keynote address at the battleship's dry docking departure ceremony. A brisk 30 degree day, about 30 mile an hour winds. But we really appreciate you being there to help us send off properly. Prior to his time in elected office, Governor Murphy was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the United States Senate as the United States Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, serving from 2009 2013. In that role, he championed American military diplomacy in a country that hosts one of the largest overseas U.S. military communities. Governor Murphy, welcome to Wetsu. It is an honor to have you on board virtually today.
- [02:02]
Governor Phil Murphy
Marshall, great to be with you. We eat this stuff up.
- [02:05]
Marshall Spivak
We eat this stuff up.
- [02:06]
Governor Phil Murphy
And I might add, as Marshall knows, for the second time today, we're with each other. So great to be here.
- [02:12]
Marshall Spivak
You were nominated by President Obama and served four years as U.S. ambassador. Germany is the home to 35,000 U.S. military uniformed personnel. And I know during your time as Ambassador, you made more than one trip to Afghanistan to visit troops in country. Wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about your op, your interactions with the military as ambassador and how that prepared you to come into your role as governor?
- [02:36]
Governor Phil Murphy
Yeah, it's a great question. So come from a, broadly speaking, a family with a lot of military tours of duty and experience. One of my big regrets is I didn't do it myself, but when we got to Germany, I spent an enormous amount of time with our military and in fact with the German military, the Bundeswehr, as well as allies in the NATO deployment in Afghanistan. Germany hosts, I think the largest non combat deployment of American troops in the world. Germany and South Korea have always been sort of neck and neck. It's got Ramstein Air Base, Landstuhl Medical center, among other historic and strategically important locations. And so lots of interaction with the Supreme Allied Commander who splits his time between Stuttgart in Germany and Mons in Belgium and as well as the four star Air Force, the three star army commander based in Stuttgart. So lots of interactions, by the way, relationships and friendships that continue to this day. You mentioned Afghanistan. President Obama put the word out we want the Germans to plus up their presence and stay the course in Afghanistan. That was late 2009. But they don't, when you get your cables as an ambassador, they tell you the what, they don't really tell you the how. So my defense attache and I concluded there was a lot of sort of false sense of what the reality was in Afghanistan in the halls of power in Berlin, some myths that just weren't true. So we said, you know what, let's go to the Bundeswehr and ask them if we could go to Afghanistan with them, see it with our own eyes, interact not just with the German troops, but the brave American troops and then come back not as a know it all, but basically say, you know, with all due respect, we were just there. This is what we saw. And we ended up. It was very effective because each year the Germans have to vote in the Bundestag, their congress to extend any military deployment. So this became an annual trip. We did it three times. We were to have done it a fourth just because of logistical reasons it didn't come across. And the Germans to their credit, stayed the course every step of the way in Afghanistan till the bitter end. But just great, great lifelong memories and experiences with our military.
- [04:46]
Marshall Spivak
You, I mentioned in your introduction you have the unique privilege of serving as Commander in Chief of the New Jersey National Guard. And you've done so overseeing the highest operational tempo in modern history. We spoke a few episodes ago with our good friend, our great Adjutant General, General Mayes. But as governor, how does it feel knowing our troops and airmen are deployed not just here domestically in state, but around the world supporting us Combat operations.
- [05:11]
Governor Phil Murphy
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. The tempo has been historic and the big, there have been a bunch of deployments. The big ones have been overseas for 15 months with the largest, I think second or largest deployment since World War II into a pretty kinetic Middle East Gulf environment. Thank God every, each and every one of them have returned safely. But that one was a always marshall, a great source of pride, but also, you know, keeping those men and women in your prayers because they were in a, as I said, a pretty kinetic environment. And then domestically, the other big sort of mountain that our folks helped us climb was during COVID So the National Guard did an enormous amount of good, whether it was in testing centers, vaccine centers, setting up emergency hospitals, step down units, just extraordinary work. General Mays does a great job, as did her predecessor who was by the way a medical doctor, which during COVID was, was another plus. But just incredibly proud of the men and women in the, in the Guard, both Army and air, as you mentioned, 8,400 strong. In fact, this Sunday I, I'm doing my annual re review of the troops which is one of the highlights of the year for me and sadly it'll be my last time doing it. But just great pride associated with the entirety of the Guard.
- [06:35]
Marshall Spivak
New Jersey is home to multiple strategically important military installation. Obviously we have the Joint base weapons station Earl, the 177 fighter win Picatinny, our friends down in Cape May at the US Coast Guard station training facility. Obviously Fort Monmouth is now home to Netflix, which we're of course all really excited about. While we might not be large in the number of uniformed personnel like a place like Germany, we are home to strategically important critical infrastructure and bases. How important are these bases to the state's economy and how have you worked with our federal, federal partners, federal congressional delegation to support our bases?
- [07:16]
Governor Phil Murphy
Yeah, they're first. They're incredibly important first. Again, they're a source of pride, but they're a source of enormously important job creation and economic activity. Job creation both by members in uniform and civilian folks. There was a rumor, there has been a rumor, for instance, in and around Picatinny over the past number of months about jobs shifting. That would be a huge blow to us. And I give Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill a lot of credit. It's her district and he's been leading a really significant effort and we've been trying to help along the way to keep those jobs in Jersey. You know, very high end engineering innovation, sophisticated value added jobs if you will. So really important, not Just in Picatinny, but up and down the state. In fact, we just established an office of Strategic Defense Investment for the very reason that you raised the question, Marshall, which is these are important assets for us. Not only what can we do to keep them, but frankly, we want to attract other potential commands or operations or elements. We, we're a state that, you know, if you've said quick two words, what two words describe New Jersey. It's talent and location. And in the military particularly, highly value added talent, sophisticated engineering based talent. Talent. And then you add location to that. We think the military is a prime target for us to aggressively not just defend what we have, but pursue other investments that our military may make. We all live through the pain of losing Fort Mammoth and that whole bra process. That was before my time. And you rightfully point out that Fort Mammoth is being reborn, led by Netflix, but with lots of other very cool and interesting investments. 1100 acres right in the heart of Monmouth county, which is my home county. And that was a devastating blow. We're finally getting back on our feet. But I don't want to, I don't want to have to live through that again with some other location. And the good news is I'm knocking on wood. We see no evidence of that. I mentioned the Picatinny piece. I hope that we've been able to head that off and we're proud of what we got. Again, talent, location. Come on down. Jersey's open for business for everybody, including our military.
- [09:31]
Marshall Spivak
Absolutely. Last year, Naval Weapons Station Earl hosted the incredible commissioning ceremony for almost 5,000 people for the new USS New Jersey SSN 796 Virginia class nuclear fast attack submarine. You delivered a great keynote address on commissioning day. Your remarks about focused on resolute courage in the face of perilous uncertainty. And obviously we're coming up on the 250 year anniversary of the Navy Marine Corps and of course just the state of the world that we're living in today. And of course you, you mentioned the, the best of all the, the Jersey One finger salute which is known nationally. How does it feel to. To finally know there's USS New Jersey back in the active fleet?
- [10:15]
Governor Phil Murphy
It feels really good. I mean, you, you oversee the extraordinary museum and memorial to the Big J in Camden as you mentioned. You and I were. That. That was the coldest I've been as governor and one of the top five coldest of my life. The wind was the thing that really got me and I was looking for our friend Pat Egan and I was told she was comfortably in the tugboat that was going to take Big J over to the, over to the naval yards in Philadelphia. But so you got the big J city there. The most decorated battleship in the history of the the United States Navy and served time and time and time again. But it has a, it's in the water in the Delaware, but it's not in the water as an active vessel. So to get the words New Jersey back into the water with the most sophisticated submarine on the planet. These Virginia class subs are at a different level. Tammy and I went down and witnessed the champagne christening of it in Virginia. And then of course, as you suggested last year we had the extraordinary launch and, and Naval base. Earl was an extraordinary host. Just a another huge point of pride. Two quickies about that which I think is, is particularly cool. It's the first class of submarine, it might be the first sub ever to have accommodations for both male and female Correct. Sailors, which is pretty cool. And then secondly, thanks to my wife Tammy, the First lady, we got Jon Bon Jovi to write out the by hand the lyrics to Living on a Prayer which hangs inside of the USS New Jersey as it sails the waters around the world. What could be, maybe with the exception of the one finger salute, what could be more Jersey than Living on a prayer handwritten by Jon Bon Jovi.
- [11:55]
Marshall Spivak
Absolutely.
- [11:56]
ELEC Local 825 Representative
Operating engineers are the men and women that move mountains. And the engineers labor employer cooperative ELEC puts them to work. They create opportunities for the men, women and union signatory contractors of Local 825 repaving our roads, keeping our homes bright and warm and even building our favorite team stadium. We understand infrastructure. That's why ELAC and Local 825 are ready to get to work.
- [12:26]
Marshall Spivak
Well, speaking of the fleet, just a few weeks ago you embarked on a trade mission to the Middle East. There you visited the headquarters and some of the ships in US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and they had lunch with sailors that were serving from New Jersey. Of course, the battleship was the flagship of the US Fifth Fleet in the Pacific in World War II. In 1944 you gave out Battleship New Jersey hats to the sailors from New Jersey. Of course we're incredibly grateful to you and of course our amazing first lady and our friends at Choose New Jersey for doing that. Can you tell us a little bit about your visit to the fifth Fleet?
- [13:01]
Governor Phil Murphy
Yeah, it was really special. Marshall first, we do a lot of international economic missions. Taxpayers don't pay one dimensional. Choose New Jersey you mentioned is a non profit. They raise the money from corporates and Individuals and they fund these trips. Jersey sells incredibly well overseas. So we're out there looking for jobs, investment. We bring higher ed with us to do memorandum of understanding. We do government to government meetings. We do some cultural stuff. In fact, we're headed to India in a few days to do a big mission there. And we've done 13 of them, but we've never done one where we're sitting there with the high honor of sitting beside American troops, in this case sailors and Coast Guards, men and women. Just an extraordinary experience. It was about a thousand degrees. You couldn't find a day that was more polar opposite from the day you and I were on the waterfront in Camden, the day we were visiting the Fifth Fleet. But had a great. I had a high side, top secret briefing. The rest of the delegation had a. A great briefing, by the way, presented the. The commanding admiral with, guess what, a guitar signed by John Bon Jovi, personalized to him, which was cool. It spent, as you said, spent lunch with sailors. I think exclusively sailors and guardsmen. One thing that would take. I think if you don't, the man on the street probably doesn't know this. Frankly, I didn't appreciate this. Our Coast Guard, you think of Coast Guard, certainly think of Cape May. You think of New York Harbor. I was with the head of the New York branch of the Coast Guard the other night at a dinner. So you think, okay, Coast Guard's guarding our coast. The Coast Guard does indispensable work around the world with our, with our fleets, in this case the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. But it was just a really great experience. We got a tour. One of the ships mentioned the briefings sat with the commanding officer, Admiral and his senior team had had lunch. Just an incredible experience. A very unique. So for all these economic missions around the world, that's a very unique visit for us, a very unique engagement. We're not normally doing that. And it made it really special and made you really proud of who we are as a nation.
- [15:13]
Marshall Spivak
That's great. And your State of the state in 2024, you promised that all 21 New Jersey counties would be home to a Veterans Service office by the end of last year. You have now achieved that amazing goal. Veterans now can go where they live instead of driving all around the state to find an office. Can you speak to why this was an essential task for your administration to fulfill?
- [15:35]
Governor Phil Murphy
Yeah, it's something on the list of points of pride. It's right up there for us. It's just shameful. I'm not making this as a Political statement. I'm sure both sides of the aisle are guilty of this. It's just shameful that we didn't have more convenient, immediate service locations for our blessed veterans. We've got several hundred thousand of them in New Jersey. I was on with Joe Griffeys the other day, who's become a dear friend.
- [15:58]
Marshall Spivak
I love Joe.
- [15:59]
Governor Phil Murphy
We love Joe. Welcome Home show and, and you know, I visited the Vietnam Memorial in Wildwood every time I go there. But you heard time and time again in our early years. Governor, do you know how far I have to drive to do X? Typically, health care, that's still a challenge with veterans. We haven't cracked the back of that. We've got 20, we've got veteran service offices in 21 counties. That's the good news. And that's a huge accomplishment. Incredibly proud of it. But they're not hospitals and we still have to. Our vets, you know, have to still travel too far. So we said, you know, let's, let's try to crack the back of what we can do because a lot of this obviously is federal government. And I've met with the Secretary of Veteran affairs and both the first Trump, second Trump and Biden administrations and we've got good working relationships across the board. But a lot of that responsibility, most of it is federal. And we said let's look at what we could do in the state and be able to get those offices it much more convenient, much more immediately available for our veterans. So we've accomplished that. And, you know, the list of challenges, it's healthcare I mentioned, it's jobs, it's shelter and homelessness, it's mental health services. All of those are, they're important to everybody. They are hyper important to veterans. We know the level of mental health, ptsd, suicide rates. We got to do everything we can to be there for our blessed veterans. We've come a long way. Not perfect, but I'm proud of the distance we've traveled and we've got four or five months left. We'll continue to stay at that the entire balance of our time in office.
- [17:30]
Marshall Spivak
Well, speaking of that, just, we're recording this on Friday, September 12th, but just yesterday you signed legislation that has been in, in the works for quite some time now to formally split the DAMAVA into a Military Affairs Department and a Veterans affairs department. Can you talk about why that was a priority for the administration and the focus shifting as well to making sure we do just what you said in taking care of our vets?
- [17:56]
Governor Phil Murphy
Yeah, I mean, it's a. It's a great question and a fascinating journey. So if you go way back in time, this is before I even declared I'm running for governor. This is back in 2014 or 15. I spent a lot of time with a really good guy named Jeff Cantor, who's a veteran himself, our bro councilman at the time. And Jeff said, you know what, what you need for an active duty military and what you need for a veteran are different realities. And we have had them under one umbrella, damava. So way back when I started, in the early days of my campaign campaigning to divide the organization, it was met with a lot of pushback. And I said, you know what, as long as our veterans are getting taken care of and as long as our, the readiness of the, of the, the active guard is at the level it needs to be, let's just keep them together. And then we saw an enormous challenge during the pandemic. So you wouldn't have guessed that a once in a century pandemic's around the corner, but guess what? It was. And that got a lot of folks, including some good legislators like Joe Vitale and Joe Cryant and our team and myself personally to say, wait a minute, do we have, is this the right organizational structure? So it's like sometimes this happens in life. We go full circle and we get back and both the legislators thought it was a good idea. We concluded it was a good idea and literally I signed the bill this week. So we'll have two departments, two cabinet representations nominated notionally, Vinnie Solomono, who's been an outstanding, basically number two at demava. Right. So General Mays is on top and it's the, it's the right thing to do. To the credit of Damava, they made an enormous amount of progress, especially on the veterans homes and the healthcare front, since some pretty tough medicine reports came out, both by us at the state level, but also by the feds. They made a lot of really good progress. So as we split these departments, you might think, well, we're doing it because we're in an emergency. Thank God I'm not going to Wood Marshall. We're not. We're through that emergency. That doesn't mean you don't have challenges every day as you do in any long term care facility. But we got through that and I give them a lot of credit, but I think this is still the right thing to do. It crystallizes the responsibilities in the organizations and I'm honored to have signed it. I know Vinnie. I've got nominated Vinnie Vinny Notionally, I don't think this actually, I think there's a four month window until this actually takes effect. So it'll be in, in January. But he'll be a great leader of that organization and Yvonne will continue to be a great adjutant general.
- [20:34]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah. I have just two more quick questions for you. Of course, the battleship is the new, the state ship of New Jersey. You were there, as we talked about. You witnessed the ship push off the pier, get underway for the first time in nearly 25 years. Can you tell us a little bit about your impression of watching the battleship get underway and of course, the import to the state of New Jersey and maintaining an essential piece of American history like the battleship?
- [20:58]
Governor Phil Murphy
Yeah, it's a big deal. As I say, I was comforted to know Pat Egan was in the, on the, on the bridge, in the tugboat. Pat's been a, you know, enormous.
- [21:06]
Marshall Spivak
Yes, she has. We would not be here without her.
- [21:09]
Governor Phil Murphy
She's great of the museum and the memorial. That's a huge source of pride. And as you mentioned, we're coming up this fall, we're going to have the 250th anniversary of the Navy and the Marine Corps. And a lot of that's going to be the Delaware river, you know, split between basically Philadelphia and Camden. And to have the Big J sitting there as a living monument, the most decorated battleship in the history of our Navy. It's on a rainy Tuesday in February. It's a big badge of honor, but it'll be a particular badge of honor as the, the Service celebrates its 250. Semi quincentennial.
- [21:45]
Marshall Spivak
Yes.
- [21:45]
Governor Phil Murphy
And not a word that rolls off the tongue. And then as the country celebrates, it's semi quincentennial next July 4th. It's a big deal. Just a quick commercial. New Jersey was home to more battles in the Revolutionary War than any other state. And I would argue historically, Massachusetts and Boston, Pennsylvania and Philly have stolen the march on us. So we put an enormous amount of energy, leadership and dollars into trying to push back and have our rightful place in the story that's told. So next Wednesday we've got Ken Burns in Newark at NJ PAC being interviewed by Brian Williams, former news anchor, talking about Ken's, Ken's America's greatest documentarian, talking about his pending documentary on the Revolutionary War that's coming out in November. Just a lot of really exciting stuff. And the Big J will be right in the middle of it all.
- [22:38]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah. Well, finally, as you noted, this is the the Wet to podcast. We eat this stuff Up. Of course, you had the opportunity to meet Admiral Tucker on, on any day. And what it means is basically doing grueling work with a smile on your face as you reflect on your, your last almost eight years, believe it or not, in office. Are there any particular wetsuit moments that particularly stand out to you?
- [23:01]
Governor Phil Murphy
Yeah, it's, it's a. First of all, I love the phrase and I love meeting Admiral Tucker, but we eat this stuff up. It's, it's, it embodies so much. I gotta, I'm gonna start with your blessing. I'm gonna start using it in my regular pattern because it embodies exactly what you just said. We do tough, dirty, hard work, but we do it with a kick in our step and a smile and our head held high. And I love that. I think that's Jersey. I think it's been our whole eight years. This is not an easy gig, but I've loved every second of it, from the good to the bad. I mean, you can imagine the darkest days of COVID in the spring of 2020. And in that case, I myself, of all things of battling cancer at this point. Who to funk it to the days where you've got the wind at your back and the sun is shining. Like the commissioning of the new SS USS New Jersey, Virginia class submarine and everything in between. You know, we're a state unlike any other. The grit, the character, the attitude, the one finger salute. Come on, let's go. You know, that's sort of. Let's, let's take this outside. That's what Jersey is. You know, I've gotten famous for saying we're from Jersey, baby, and you're not.
- [24:13]
Marshall Spivak
That's right.
- [24:14]
Governor Phil Murphy
But that's sort of like, it's like we eat this stuff up. Yeah, we got an attitude. You got a problem with that? You look up for somebody to do the 20 hour shift and get dirty and mucky and sweat like hell. Call, call 1-800-NEWJERSEY and that's. We'll pick it up and we'll do the job for you. I just love it. I love the phrase, I love what it stands for and I love hanging out with you.
- [24:34]
Marshall Spivak
Thank you, Governor. Well, Governor Murphy, thank you so much for joining us today for this great conversation, sharing your thoughts on what it means to serve New Jers Commander in Chief, as well as your continued commitment to our veterans, our service members and their families. And of course your support, which we appreciate greatly at the country's most decorated battleship. Your leadership has helped ensure that New Jersey remains a strategic home for our military as we talked about, and a place that honors and supports those who wear the uniform long after they come home to our listeners. Thank you very much for tuning into wetsu. If today's conversation inspired you, we encourage you to learn more about how you can support New Jersey's military community. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on wetsu, a Battleship New Jersey podcast.
- [25:18]
Governor Phil Murphy
Thanks for having me, Marshall.
- [25:19]
Marshall Spivak
Thank you, Governor. Really appreciate it.
- [25:21]
ELEC Local 825 Representative
Operating engineers are the men and women that move mountains, and the engineers Labor Employer Cooperative ELEC puts them to work. They create opportunities for the men, women and union signatory contractors of Local 825 repaving our roads, keeping our homes bright and warm, and even building our favorite team stadium. We understand infrastructure. That's why Elac and Local 825 are ready to get to work.