Morning Wire - Flipping New Jersey Red: Jack Ciattarelli’s Final Pitch

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

The race to become New Jersey’s next governor remains razor-thin, as the candidates make their final pitch to voters. Republican Candidate In this episode, Jack Ciattarelli joins the show to talk about his day-one priorities. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsors: Lean: Get 20% off when you enter MORNINGWIRE at https://TakeLean.com - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy morning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The election for New Jersey governor is just a couple of days away now, and Republican Jack Chittarelli says he's ready to flip the Garden State red. Chittarelli is pledging to end cashless bail, reverse sanctuary city policies, and overhaul the state's education board, removing what he calls divisive LGBTQ curriculum. In this episode, Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips sits down with the candidate to see what sets him apart from his Democratic opponent, Mikey Sherrill. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

By the time the average person reaches 60, they've likely cycled through numerous fad diets, collectively losing and regaining several hundred pounds over the years. All that yo-yo dieting increases your risk of diabetes, liver problems, and heart issues. The truth is, most of us need more than willpower to break free from this pattern. That's where lean comes in. Unlike those expensive GLP1 injections, Lean is a non-prescription supplement created by doctors, specifically for this problem. And the science behind it is rock solid.

Lean tackles weight loss three ways that actually help you keep it off. It keeps your blood sugar steady, no more energy crashes sending you into a snack cabinet. It controls cravings and that constant hunger feeling. And it helps your body convert fat into energy instead of storing it. I say it all the time. I was skeptical. But I tried it anyway and before I knew it, I was down a pants size and I was going to the Daily Wire kitchen way less. If you want to lose meaningful weight at a healthy pace and keep it off, add lean to your diet and exercise lifestyle.

Get 20% off when you enter code morningwire at takeleen.com. That's code morningwire at takelein.com today. Hey, Jack, thanks so much for making time for us. Now you're in the home stretch right now. I really appreciate it. Not all. Thank you for the opportunity. So let's just start with the overview of this race.

I think a lot of folks who maybe don't follow state politics as closely hear that there is an exceedingly close race in New Jersey, and they might be surprised by that, thinking of the history of New Jersey as a more blue state, four months ago, polls were showing you trailing by more than 20 points. This week, you are essentially tied in every poll that is coming out. What changed over the course of this election? People want change across the state.

They're very frustrated with Phil Murphy's failed policies, and they have failed us. The taxes, they've increased every single year. He's been in office. The exorbitant spending in our state government, I mean, our state budget's gone from $36 billion to almost $60 billion, a 64% increase. Housing, we've got an overdevelopment crisis in our suburban community. but yet an acute housing shortage in our urban areas. We don't have public safety in Jersey. Nonviolent crime is spiked because we don't let our local police do their job,

the break-ins, the car thefts, the flash mobs, public education. People aren't happy with what's going on there, and we've slipped from 2 to 12 on National Report Card. Your electricity bill is going through the roof. These are all things that people really pissed off about, and when they're pissed, they want change. So people very upset with the current leadership on the Democratic Party. We saw a recent poll where President Trump had a higher approval rating

than Democrat governor, Phil Murphy. Obviously, that's contributing as well. But what is it about you that you've seen resonating with voters? I'm a Jersey guy. So my opponent is not from New Jersey. Jersey is like a Jersey guy. They particularly like a hardworking guy. Through the power of social media,

we demonstrate where it is that we are every day, every week, every month. 564 towns, 21 counties, north-central south, Jersey Shore, 600-plus diners. We go out and engage every single day. My opponent has not been doing that, which just bewilders me. I don't know how serious she's taking this or maybe she thinks she's a shoe in. You've got to get out and press the flesh. We do that every day and talk about how we're going to solve people's problems.

They like it when they hear new ideas. In your experience on the trail talking with thousands of voters, what's the number one topic that you hear brought up the most? Whenever it's hitting your pocketbook, that's the first thing that's going to come out of your mouth. And right now it's their monthly electricity bills. people just can't understand why it's $2, $300 more than it was just a couple of months ago. And the reason is because of the failures of the current administration. They really bet everything on wind. And seven and a half years later, there's not a single wind turbine off our Jersey shore, nor will there be when I'm governor.

The Jersey shore is kind of sank or sank here. People don't want the wind farms. Not to mention they're not a reliable source of energy, nor are they cost effective. But the current governor shut down six different electricity generation plans, put a moratorium on natural gas, fire, electricity. Our current plants are only at 50% capacity. Didn't expand nuclear. We have three nuclear power plants in South Jersey. Didn't accelerate solar. All the warehousing that has gone up is prime real estate for solar arrays on the rooftops. Didn't do any of that. Put it all on wind. I'll pull us out of Reggie on day one. The regional greenhouse gas initiative is a carbon tax policy

that has failed New Jersey. I could save $300 to $500 million a year on the get-go for homeowners, tenants and businesses, and that's exactly what we're going to do. Now, a lot of Republicans who have success at the state level in blue states take a more moderate approach. You know, Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan's of the world, considered more moderate, keeping their distance from Donald Trump. You have not shied away from the president, it seems. He's endorsed you.

He said that you're, quote, all in on the MAGA movement. And that is unique in a blue state. Walk us through that relationship with the president. I make it clear to New Jerseyans that I'm all in on the New Jersey movement for change. People want and need change. The Democratic parties controlled our legislature for 25 years. They've controlled the executive branch, the governorship now for eight years. And the questions I asked rhetorically because all my opponent wants to talk about is Trump,

because of her disdain for Trump. I mean, her whole campaign is based on a stack of lies about me, disdain for Trump, and she can fly a helicopter. Is that going to fix New Jersey? And by the way, what does Donald Trump? have to do with our property taxes? What does he have to do with public safety in this state? Public education, your monthly electricity bill, overdevelopment in our suburban communities. He's got nothing to do with that. The party has controlled Trent for the last 25 years has

everything to do with that. So, listen, I think that you can be friends with the president and support his policies while making it clear that you're all about fixing New Jersey. And what I believe a majority of New Jersey's want is change on everything that's broken and drives us nuts here in the Garden State. We've seen President Trump take an active role in states around the country in acting as agenda. I'm interested if you were elected, are there any platform issues from the president that you see that you would not want going on in your state? Are there any things that come to mind that you would disagree with and push back on the administration? What I've said to the president is you won't ever have to worry about sending the National Reserve, the New Jersey.

I appoint the Attorney General. I appoint the 21 county prosecutors. I appoint the superintendent of the state police. and we're going to work in partnership with local police to take the handcuffs off and let these men and women in blue do their job. They're trained professionals. And as I've gone around the state, people agree with me. They want safe communities.

And the way to have safe communities is by letting the local law enforcement professionals do their job. For example, the current attorney general has been very anti-police. He doesn't believe in high-speed chases. Well, if you don't believe in high-speed chases, guess what's going to happen in New Jersey? There's going to be a whole lot of car thefts. These are trained professionals, okay? let them do their job. Let's make it clear that anybody that engages in criminal activity here in New Jersey,

no matter what it is, there's going to be a consequence. We're going to be a law and order state, and we're going to have public safety here in New Jersey. If elected, what sort of approach would you take when it comes to working with federal agencies like ICE, DEA, ATF, operating within your state? We've seen a number of governors sort of try to handicap them, keep them out of their state. How would you approach those agencies? Two ways that we make New Jersey safe out of the get-go.

Number one, there will be no sanctuary cities in New Jersey. When I'm governor, we will not be a sanctuary state. I'm reversing that policy on day one. I can do that by executive order. And I'm never going to tell a local mayor or police chief, they can't work in partnership with a federal agency to keep their community safe if that's what they want to do. That's a local decision.

And I would support it 100 percent, whatever is that mayor and police chief decide to do to keep their community safe. But the other thing I have to do is get rid of cashless bail. Cashless bail in New Jersey's created a professional criminal who's learned how to game the system. And you talk to your local cops, arrest, release, repeat is real. And it's demoralizing to our local cops to have to arrest the same person over and over again because they keep getting let go because of cashless bail.

These are all the things that need to change to keep our community safe. One of the issues we've covered extensively on this show and all across the Daily Wire is that of transgenderism among minors. whether it be medical institutions that are allowing and encouraging young children to medically transition, or whether it's in schools, where curriculums are pushing this LGBTQ indoctrination on students at a young age. Is there any action that you would take as governor to prevent that from happening? Absolutely. You'll get a whole new state board of education in New Jersey when I'm governor. That's the body that sets the public school curriculum.

And what will be deleted from that public school curriculum is the LGBTQ. curriculum, which was brought on the scene by the Murphys and the Trenton Democrats to promote inclusivity. I don't know how it is you promote inclusivity by talking about our differences. I think you better achieve that by talking about our similarities. When I sit down what Muslim Americans in New Jersey, they're telling me their children are being bullied. When I sit down with the Sikhs, they tell me their children are being bullied. When I sit down with Jews, they tell me their children are being bullied. We don't have a Muslim curriculum. We don't have a Sikh curriculum. We don't have a Jewish curriculum, but we've got an LGBTQ curriculum. How about if we just have a curriculum that speaks

to diversity, since we're the most diverse state in the country, and that our children are to love and respect their neighbors, no matter how different they may be from oneself. Teach them the golden rule. Even kindergartners would understand do on to others as you would have others do on to you. So that's some of the things that we can change right out of the gate, I think, to better achieve the ultimate goal of strength in our community in New Jersey. And I want to follow up on the medical aspect of this. We've seen a number of read states past legislation, even here in Tennessee, that would ban health care providers from providing transgender surgeries or hormones to minors. Is that something that you would consider if it

came to your desk? It is something I'll consider, and I'll tell you why. I'm all about the literature. And what is starting to emerge in the literature is documented evidence of cases where, because gender dysphoria is still kind of a fairly new phenomenon. It's not like other clinical disorders that maybe been around for 30, 40, 50, 60 years, and we have a body of research. the literature is now emerging that people that had life altering surgeries 10 years ago, 10 years later are wishing they never had those surgeries. And so while I'm all about parental rights, I don't think we should be having surgeries perform that alters somebody's biology, if you will, until they're of adult age.

So while I'm all for parental rights, I think there are some things that we need to prohibit here in New Jersey to protect the individual and let them make the decision once they are considered an adult. You took part in a high-stakes debate with your opponent, Mikey Sheryl. There were a number of moments that went viral nationally from that debate, one of which involving Charlie Kirk. And you talked about how your opponent, you know, you could say it was being maybe two-faced when it came to Charlie's assassination.

Walk our audience through that exchange and what you view is the issue with her response to Kirk's murder. So there were a couple of very, very important joint appearances, that particular morning, and I believe she used the Charlie Kirk resolution to celebrate his life as a means to get out of New Jersey and not appear joint appearances. She either doesn't show or she sends a surrogate, quite frankly, is because she doesn't know what the hell to say. But she went to Washington, D.C. and she did vote yes. Now, since the time she declared for governor, she's missed 90% of her votes, but yet on this particular day, she went to Washington D.C. to vote yes on the resolution

celebrating Charlie Kirk's life. Then she came back to New Jersey. and caught hell from the far left. So what did she do? A few hours after voting yes on a resolution celebrating his life, she issues a statement condemning him, calling him a misogynist and a racist. And so therein lies the big dilemma for my opponent. She doesn't have a backbone.

She won't stand up to members of her own party, and she'll contradict herself constantly because she doesn't know which way to go. I'm interested in hearing more about this tug of war between the Democrat Party's far-left base and maybe the more traditional moderate base, as many people there might be there, where we have seen many Democrat candidates seem almost held hostage by that far-left base, thinking what sort of heat am I going to catch from them if I appear to in any way be making a compromise or being more reasonable with the

right? In your view, where does she fall on that spectrum? Where do you think she is in relation to the far-left versus more traditional old-school Democrat? I'll answer the question this way. is a hyper-partisan. And I'll give you an example of that. When there were shutdowns during the Biden administration, she voted yes on the continuing resolutions to try to keep government open. Now we have a shutdown under Trump. What did she do?

She voted no on the resolution to keep the government open. That tells me she's a hyper-partisan. She voted with Joe Biden 100% of the time, supported his open border policies, supported his inflationary policies, voted no on the Lake and Riley. Act. So let me see if I get this. You're here illegally, crime number one, and while you're here, you broke the law. Crime number two. We're not going to detain and or deport you? She voted no on that bill. She voted yes twice, this mother of two daughters, to allow biological boys to participate in girls' sports, but yet say she's for women's rights. That vote undermines Title IX. So I just see

contradiction after contradiction and hypocrisy after hypocrisy because she's pandering to the far left. But yes, she'll try to portray herself as not only a Jersey girl. She hasn't been here all that long, but also a moderate. She's not a moderate. One other point that you brought up at the debate that you've talked about repeatedly on the campaign trail. We've seen TV advertisements about this as well. Was your opponent's stock trading in Congress? There was this moment that went incredibly viral where she was asked on a radio show about how she increased her net worth by millions of dollars, individual stock trading. What do you make of her response and her history? with stock trading while in Congress?

First of all, the response in the interview to which you're referring is painfully embarrassing. And I think as a disqualifier, you don't know if you made $7 million? We do know this. She broke federal law. She had to pay fines because of stock trades and stock reporting as a congressperson.

And the New York Times reports which she has never personally refuted is that she was trading defense stocks while sitting on the House Armed Services Committee. Now, I got to tell you, even if that's not illegal, it doesn't pass the sniff test. Do you not concern yourself one bit with public perception? People hate it when public servants use their office to enrich themselves, which it seems that's exactly what she's done. But there's a pattern here, right? She broke the law,

the New York Times report, a campaign based on a stack of lies, we heard him again last night, but then learning that she didn't get to walk at the graduation ceremony at the Naval Academy, that she was caught up in the cheating scandal of the early 1990s. There's a pattern here, that speaks to character. All right, our final question before we let you go, the Wednesday after election day, you wake up as governor, what will have been the biggest reason?

Why will you have won? Because we went out there and delivered a message that resonated with the people in Jersey on how to specifically fix all the things that are very broken about this state. People want to hear specifics. They don't want generalities, they don't want platitudes,

and they certainly don't want lies. And most of all, what they want is somebody who's from New Jersey. All right. We will leave it there. Jack Chitorelli, thank you so much for your time. Good luck on your race.

We appreciate you coming on, joining us. Thank you. That was Daily Wire's senior editor, Cabot Phillips, talking with Jack Chittarelli, the Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey.

And this has been a weekend edition of Morningwire.