MTracey podcast - Asking the New Jersey gubernatorial candidates about Zohran Mamdani, Venezuela, "misinformation," and Epstein

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

This Wednesday, October 8, I intrepidly voyaged to New Brunswick, NJ for the final New Jersey gubernatorial debate of the 2025 election cycle. Now, you may be asking yourself: Why should I care about the New Jersey gubernatorial race? Even if you live in New Jersey, you may find yourself asking this question. And I’m not claiming you should care deeply or passionately. But there are some interesting dynamics perhaps worth keeping an eye on.First is that if Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, the Democrat, wins, it’s likely she’ll eventually be courted to run for president. There has only ever been one female governor of New Jersey, and it was a Republican (Christine Todd Whitman). So we’ll probably hear a lot about Mikie’s “history-making” triumph as the first female Democratic governor of the state. Her political career was assiduously cultivated by Party chieftains, beginning when she won her election to the House in 2018, as one of the estimable “Dem National Security Women” who swept to power that year, along with Elissa Slotkin (CIA) who is now Senator from Michigan, and Abigail Spanberger (CIA) who now appears to be a shoo-in for the next Governor of Virginia. (NJ’s off-year race, at least per conventional wisdom, seems more competitive than the VA race.) Mikie wasn’t CIA, but she’s a former Naval Aviator and Federal Prosecutor — so close enough. And she’s always running around declaring that her vaunted public service is “rooted in the defense of our country on the front lines of national security.”So, basically, Mikie Sherrill is poised to become a major national figure. And as such, it’s worth interrogating her ideological profile and inclinations. Some of those inclinations include: constantly calling contested political claims “misinformation,” promoting censorship-friendly “Online Safety” initiatives, being extremely over-rehearsed and boring, etc. At the post-debate press conference, I was able to ask Mikie about her “misinformation” verbal tick, as you can see in the video above.Joining me for this New Jerseyean adventure was Meagan O’Rourke, whose YouTube channel you should also take a look at. She’s mainly been covering the NYC mayoral race, and asked Mikie whether she reciprocates the apparently unsolicited endorsement that Zohran Mamdani (somewhat strangely) gave Mikie in August. Zohran is diligently trying to “moderate,” while Mikie is already seen as a thoroughly “moderate Dem,” and is therefore trying to fend off any accusations that she may be emboldening the “radical socialist” element of the party. These divergent incentives have made for a confounding situation where Mikie simply refuses to weigh in on the NYC mayoral election, even as there are a raft of issues on which the NJ governor and the NYC mayor would manifestly have to work together. As you’ll see, she unconvincingly evades Meagan’s question.I also mixed things up a bit by asking Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican, about the Trump Administration seemingly marching toward imposing regime change in Venezuela. While admittedly not the most obvious New Jersey-focused issue, NJ does have one of the largest populations of Venezuelan-born residents — therefore it’s conceivable that if the Venezuelan government gets further crippled and/or overthrown, there could be a surge in migratory inflows to the state. Jack, probably truthfully, said he didn’t know enough about the issue to comment. At the same time, he did say he gave the Second Trump Administration an “A” rating, so he should perhaps consider brushing up a bit on what it’s doing abroad.Finally, I managed to raise my absolute favorite subject in the world — Jeffrey Epstein. But it was not my doing that Epstein bizarrely became an issue in the New Jersey gubernatorial race! Mikie Sherrill, still a sitting member of Congress, joined with every other Democrat and a handful of Republicans to sign the Khanna/Massie discharge petition, purportedly to compel release of the “Epstein Files.” And she put out a statement trying to claim that Jack Ciatterelli is too afraid of “his boss,” Trump, to join her heroic efforts to demand Epstein-related transparency. When I put this to Jack, he said it was another one of Mikie’s lies, and he’s all in favor of releasing the files. I doubt he even knows what “releasing the files” would mean — much less that the Khanna/Massie legislation would not actually bring about the full release of such files — but there you have it. The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein somehow haunts the 2025 New Jersey gubernatorial election.Meagan and I chatted about all this and more in the above video — press conference clips included — so give it a good little watch, if you want. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mtracey.net/subscribe

All right. Hello, Megan. Recording. Hey, how's it going? It's going great. Thanks for asking. So we're doing this impromptu little segment or chat or what have you because last night we went to the New Jersey gubernatorial debate in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Now, why do we go to this? People might be asking themselves, I don't care about the New Jersey gubernatorial debate. I don't even live in New Jersey. even if they do happen to live in New Jersey, they might not care. To that, I would say, this is probably the the only competitive statewide election in the United States in 2025.

New Jersey and Virginia are the two states that have these off-year gubernatorial elections. The Virginia election is not particularly competitive. It would seem in that the Democrat is probably poised to win. The Democrat might be favored to win, Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey, but it is, seemingly more competitive, especially after eight years of democratic governance in the statehouse under Phil Murphy, who I really don't like. So I don't know.

I might even be persuaded to vote Republican in this race, but we won't get into my preferences. And we figured we would go to this debate, right? So just let's set the scene a little bit because these debates are interesting in that there's not a whole lot of national attention, right? So it's not like the presidential debate. that we went to last year. And if you notice, like, the population of journalists that would populate, I just overuse

that the term populate, events like this or debates like this, they tend to be like TV journalists, local TV network journalists or local newspaper journalists. So no offense to them, but they're probably, they're not inclined to ask that adventurous of questions for the most part. We support local, local journalists. But yeah, it's the TV network people that often don't ask great questions. Do we support local? journalist? I'm not even sure if I do.

I don't know. I feel like that's just something people have to say, you know? Yeah, that's just like a civic obligation. I mean, I support on principle the idea of having robust local journalism, but oftentimes the ones who conduct the journalism are not that great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what did you make

of like the scene in general of their open-ended question? Oh, of the moderators? of just, you know, the journalists who were there. Oh, oh, oh, oh, just a scene. We're giving the people, some behind the scenes info.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we were at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center on the Rutgers campus. And these debates are weird because you don't actually watch in the room, like, where the debate is happening. You go into, like, this weird little annex room, and they put the debate on a screen, and it's kind of always, like, entertaining to hear the things that people react to. I mean, these debates aren't, like, the craziest thing ever, but occasionally you'll get some laughter or some like, ooh. So it's always entertaining to see.

Remember, I was the only one jeering and screaming during the presidential debate last year in Philadelphia. Because of the Dick Cheney comment, you were like. I couldn't help it like loudly. That was way bigger, though. This was like a tiny room. I would estimate maybe there were like 30 people there. And everyone looks very serious.

They're like typing on their computers. Yeah, they're all like very professional. professional. I mean, I was diligently taking notes, but... Yes, in longhand, which was impressive. Thank you. But I don't fault anyone for paying attention and doing their jobs,

but you can just like... What is their job in that moment? They're not even doing anything. They just have their noses in their computers. They're just like looking for soundbites to like... The debate happened, and it was happening in New Jersey, and there were all these, these, you know, exchanges.

I mean, the exchange... None of the exchanges were too spicy, except there was... Well, we can get into actually... Well, no, there were. There was a spicy exchange, too. Yes, a few. I will just say, I'll admit, because I don't, I guess, subscribe to the same notions of journalistic objectivity as others.

During his closing statement, Jack Chidorelli, the Republican, talked about how every Sunday he grew up with his mother, like, making Sunday gravy and macaroni, and I couldn't help but belt out. He's got my vote, because I can relate to that in terms of... of the sanctity of the Sunday Italian meal. Your cultural, like, I don't know. I'm respecting my cultural horror heritage, at least half of it.

Yeah. No, but that wasn't the spicy exchange. No, that wasn't the spicy exchange. The spicy exchange is in Mikey Cheryl. I'm not even sure if she planned to make her allegation this specific and shocking, but she did accuse directly Jack Chittarelli of killing tens of thousands of New Jersey. New Jerseyans? You know, my opponent likes to talk a lot about being a businessman, but I think what New Jersey

doesn't know is much about his business, how he made his millions, by working with some of the worst offenders in saying that opioids were safe, putting out propaganda, publishing their propaganda while tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died. And as if that wasn't enough, then he was paid to develop an app so that people who are addicted could more easily get access to opioids. And so as he made millions, as these opioid companies made billions, tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died. Mr. Chitterelli.

First of all, shame on you. Second of all. Shame on you, sir. Same on you. During the Biden administration, she had no problem whatsoever with tens of thousands of people crashing our border each and every day not knowing what impact they had in our communities with regard to fentanyl crisis, fentanyl abuse, fentanyl distribution, vaccine. and the like, talk to your local police, talk to your county prosecutors in New Jersey.

Since the border has been secured, fentanyl crisis has decreased significantly. She supported those open border policies. But with regard to everything she just said about my professional career, which provided my family, it's a lie. I'm proud of my career. You get 30 seconds. I'm happy to publish the information. And here are the facts. I work because I think our kids deserve better.

I think the people you got addicted and died deserve better than you. And I'll tell you, yeah, tens of thousands here as you published misinformation, as you got more people addicted, as you worked to develop, got paid to develop an app so that more people could get more opioids and die. I got the walk at my college graduation. Even during, even... I got the walk at my college graduation. And I'm so glad that you then went on to kill tens of thousands of people in New Jersey, including children. And I never broke the law.

As they got... I never broke the law. In fact, your campaign right now is under federal investigation for how you illegally got access to my record. So to say that right now, and I think you're trying to divert from the fact that you killed tens of thousands of people by printing your misinformation, your propaganda, and then getting paid to develop an app so that people could more easily get the opioids once they were addicted. Families across the state deserve to know more about that. Apparently he had like a medical publishing company that he sold in 2017, but prior to that, he partnered with the University of Tennessee on making pain medication. more freely available to people, including through the convenience of an app. And the claim is that that then got people hooked on opioids.

And I don't know. I think it seems like it was like sort of an early innovation in like telehealth or something like that. But even if some of the guidelines that were operative in that app were too lax according to some in terms of like the distribution of pain medications, which is a fair argument, I guess, to then go ahead and claim that he personally killed thousands of people, which was pretty shocking.

Again, it's not clear to me if Mikey Cheryl anticipated that she was going to make the allegations so directly and shockingly. Maybe she would have made more general, a more general critique of his involvement in this for-profit enterprise, but I don't know. What did you make of that?

Yeah, I mean, we could, I'll again like we can play the clip exactly I don't think she said like you directly killed this many people I think she did that was like the implication okay we could go back and no I think she did directly say it wording and then that led to the exchange where they were like shame on you shame on you and then

shame on you no shame on you sir yeah Jack Chitorelli brought up the fact that Mikey Cheryl didn't walk with her graduating class and because she was implicated he said in this cheating scandal in which she did not snitch on her classmates who were cheating. And then, I don't know, that has become, like, too much of a focal point, I feel like, during this whole election season.

I don't really care about that so much. So I don't have the direct quote. We can find it easily. But in the morning monitor, which is like a New Jersey newsletter by Terrence T. McDonald's, I think, I believe it's a former newspaper reporter. But he summarizes it as Cheryl made the claim twice that Chittarelli killed tens of thousands of New Jerseyans including children.

You killed tens of thousands of people by printing your misinformation, your propaganda, and then getting paid to develop an app. Now again, there are reasonable critiques to be made of maybe the over-accessibility of opioids or what have you for profit. But that went a little far.

So that did create a reaction in the room we were in, right? I mean, people definitely perked up when they heard that. For the first maybe half hour or so of the debate, a lot of it was pretty banal. Like, it was just a recitation of more standard talking points. But when that came up, and then that caused Chidorelli to do, like, an insult in return by saying, you know, at least I walked in my graduation.

You know, that issue is, it could be, I agree that's a little bit ticky-tack or not particularly significant. However, if Mikey Cheryl is continuing to not tell the full truth about whatever happened to go on when she was at the Naval Academy, and her claim is that she simply was deprived of the ability to walk in her graduation because she didn't snitch on others. But in reality, maybe she was more of a participant in the snitching or like her involvement was more direct than she's let on. You know, that could be – that just gets to her. forthrightness, you know, so who knows what other issues she might be fudging the truth on. You know, not that the cheating scandal itself means a whole lot.

But, you know, I think it could be a legitimate issue. And also we have this weird quirk or twist where the National Archives apparently released unduly or improperly her military records after a FOIA request was filed by some Republican operative who's connected to Chitarelli. So is the National Archives potentially being politically weaponized against Democrats? Like that's another wrinkle here that could be significant. I'm in favor of maximum transparency and disclosure, right? But like if a specific exception was made simply because materials that reflected poorly on this Democratic gubernatorial candidate could be unearthed during a campaign, you know, that's also significant.

So there's some aspects to this whole mini controversy that go beyond. just like the substance of whether or not she cheated when she was, you know, however old, 21. Well, but okay, her claim is that she just did not tell on other people who were cheating, which, I mean, it's good to be honorable, especially if you have, like, you know, military background, everything. But I think, like, her right now, her problem is coming off as, like, too frigid. And maybe some people really like that. People like my mom like that.

They like these no nonsense, like national security women. but I don't know if I were her I'd be like yeah I'm not I didn't tell all my classmates like I didn't cheat but like I mean I know I would maybe support her more or be more favorably just boast toward her if she just like unapologize I genetically said no of course I didn't snitch because like I wouldn't snitch probably if I was in a similar situation yeah and we should just get to her her background a little bit Mikey Cheryl okay so this actually does get to some of the more national implications right because she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 during a, it was a midterm wave that was pro-democratic.

So a lot of Democrats got elected in 2018. It was the first midterm of Trump's first term. And what the Democratic campaign, congressional campaign committee did that cycle, and I cover this a lot actually at the time, including for the young Turks, believe it or not, when that was still a thing, at least in my existence, was that they were kind of, you know, the party apparatus was intervening in basically primaries,

which they're not supposed to do technically, to get the most moderate, you know, people nominated. And what they tend to do, especially for these competitive districts that were identified, such as the one that Mikey Sherrill got elected in New Jersey, which happens to be my hometown district.

So it was a Republican district, meaning there was a Republican in office, Rodney Freelingheisen, from before I was born in 1988 to 2018, when Mikey Cheryl got elected. That whole span of time in my life, that was a Republican district. It's more of an affluent suburban district,

and those were the districts that the Democrats were targeting at the time because these affluent suburbs were trending Democratic. But, you know, so she got the party machinery behind her to get nominated, and she was seen as, like, one of these rising stars.

So she was, like, in the same class as Alyssa Slotkin, who got elected in Michigan to the house, or this Abigail Spanberger, who's now running for governor in Virginia. So these national security women, right, who were either CIA in the case of Slotkin or in the case of Cheryl. She was a former federal prosecutor, a naval aviator. So there was like a certain archetype that the Democrats were trying to draw from to get these people elected. So Mikey Cheryl, should she win in New Jersey, which hasn't elected a lot of female governors.

the most recent one was actually a Republican governor, Christy Todd Whitman. She could be a national figure, probably be courted to run for president at some point, et cetera. So it is worth paying a little bit of attention to this race, I would say, just given it's like a, it's like the long game that was used by these democratic sort of operatives or machinery overseers to get certain Democrats in positions of national prominence.

Yeah. And, okay, another reason to pay attention to this debate, and maybe this is just, you know, me saying that New York City is the center of the universe is, you know, there is a New York City. Start spreading the news. No, but obviously. We're leaving today. Sorry. Sometimes I can't, because I'm semi-autistic as people on the internet tell me, sometimes I just can't help but break out into song like New York, New York. But go ahead.

Anyway. As I was saying, you know, obviously a lot of people are watching the New York City elections. And it's interesting because Mom Dani has endorsed Mikey Cheryl and she has not reciprocated that endorsement. At least, she's given all these like kind of non-answers about Mom Dany when asked about him. And on one hand, you have people like Jack Chitorelli saying that she, you know, hasn't like, said that she doesn't want his endorsement, and that is, you know, a stain on her campaign. But then you also have Dems who are, you know, say, like, why don't you endorse Mum Donnie? And it's just, you can see that he's already causing problems for the Democratic Party because these,

I mean, I don't really personally care whether she's like, yes, I support Mum Donnie. Like, I don't think that Democrats should necessarily have that enforce, like, ideological conformity. but it is frustrating that she won't just either give like a criticism of him and explain why, or just endorse him and say that, you know, she's going to work with him. Even if she doesn't endorse him, just like explain, okay, we'll have like a good working relationship with New York City. And she spent like a good portion of this debate talking about the gateway tunnel project between New Jersey and New York City. and she was complaining about the Trump, like, cutting or withholding funding for this. Related to the government shutdown.

Yeah. But then when later asked by me, like, do you endorse Mom Dani or do you reciprocate his endorsement? She was like, oh, I'm not getting into that. And, you know, it's just ridiculous because as the governor of New Jersey, you would have to work with the mayor of New York City. And so to pretend like this, you know, race doesn't, like, concern you. I don't know. I just think that it's very cowardly. Yeah. And there have been a huge number of issues in which the governor of New Jersey and the mayor of New York slash the governor of New York had been involved in like he did live issues. Like the congestion pricing. Yeah.

New York and New Jersey co-managed the Port Authority. meaning it's a by-state enterprise so that runs like the airports in the region, the cross-river passing, pathways, passings. So the bridges, tunnels, etc. George Washington Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel are both managed by the Port Authority.

The Holland Tunnel is a little bit different because it's older. It doesn't really make any sense. So there's a lot of like co-mingled interests here, obviously. and yeah, Megan asked a very good question at the press conference afterwards. But it's a question she's been asked before, which is frustrating. It's been asked before, but like, you're right, Mikey Cheryl, it's not, she doesn't even address it. I actually didn't know until yesterday that Zoron had then asked a question about Mikey Cheryl and had endorsed her.

Because Zoron's political incentives are different, right? He's trying to moderate. He'll take an endorsement from any standard Normie Democrat, right? So that's why he got Kathy Hokel. He'll accept an endorse. I'm sure he would accept an endorsement from Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries if they're willing to offer it, which as of yet they're not. But so he's trying to moderate moderate by sort of like aligning with more moderate Democrats. But Mikey Cheryl already a big moderate.

Like that's her public image, right, has to fend off any accusations that she's empowering this more radical element. So therefore she gives these wishy-washy. non-answers, including to you, when you asked her the question. So we should play the clip now. And you also tried to follow up saying, but, like, what you wouldn't answer, you shouted out, but you'd have to work with the mayor of New York City, et cetera. So your answer is even more absurd in light of that. If Zohran Mondani were elected, do you reciprocate his endorsement?

Yes or no? I'm not getting involved in the New York mayor. But you have to work with the mayor of New York City about the tunnel. So that was Megan's, question at this post-debate press conference. So it was a little bit different than how post-debate post-debate situations have tended to work in my experience in that like ABC News, like the local ABC affiliate that hosted this debate set up like a more formal press conference type area that the candidates would come to and talk to the reporters afterwards. It wasn't just like a scrum or like a

surrogate coming out to take questions. And they didn't really get it. give the candidates like instructions on what to do it seems so like they're like okay what do i do once they like they stood up on that podium um so i got the first question into jack chitterrelli i think and um it was a little bit more of it was like a little bit out of left field i'll admit but you know i wanted to mix things up because like i'm sorry these local reporters ask the most boring questions that don't ever really shine light on anything interesting okay but do the national reporters do like that much of a better job? Not really.

Or the international reporters? No. The worst job, arguably. No, so maybe you're right. I shouldn't confine my critique. You just think you're better than all of them. I think I'm better than everybody on earth. But so are you, Megan.

I include you because you asked the good question about Zoran. It was your question? So I asked, so, so, so, so one of the themes is that, you know, Mikey Cheryl is trying to accuse Jack Chitterelli of being overly tied to Trump, right? So Mikey Cheryl also has to. but also has an incentive to nationalize the race as much as possible, even though it's a gubernatorial race, which is also interesting in terms of a national audience

or why this could be of national import, because we've seen a trend over the course of years where races that maybe had more localized dynamics had become more nationally oriented, especially with the rise of Trump, because any Republicans automatically going to be accused of being like in Hawk and Trump, especially in states that are more democratic leaning,

the Democratic candidate will try to make hay of that, right? Even though Jack Chitterelli, he's kind of just like a squish, moderate Republican, pretty much. He actually won a Republican primary earlier this year against much more right-wing Republicans. He's pro-choiced

also. Yeah, yeah, he's pro-choice. Yeah. Although, I mean, describe his answer actually on the abortion thing because it was actually much kind of more in line with, like, if I had to make my own personal statement, been on abortion. It's kind of more aligned with what I would say.

Yeah, if I remember correctly, he said that, you know, he would want to see, like, federal funding or, I don't know if it's state funding or federal funding, go to, like, state funding, go to Planned Parenthood and, you know, like how they have, like, pregnancy centers that are usually, like, more conservative or sometimes, like, somewhat religious and pro-life leaning where they, you know, encourage women to not have abortions, I guess. So he would want to see the funding go to both of those. But he also said in general he wouldn't be like celebrating abortion as this great, you know, triumph for New Jersey or necessarily like trying to make New Jersey into a haven.

So people who can't get abortions in other states that are more conservative can come to New Jersey and get like a fully funded abortion. But at the same time, he would say that, you know, if, women are in a situation where they need an abortion. In New Jersey, they could still get access to it under his preferred sort of regiment. So it was more just about... I think he wanted, like, the notification, like, if you're under 18 that your parents had to be notified. I don't know.

Did that come up yesterday? I'm not even sure. Well, he made some comment. He was like, I don't know if this is even true. He was like, oh, if you're under 18, like, you can't get your ears pierced in New Jersey, like, without a parent. so he was like, why should you be able to get an abortion? Okay. We should really have rewatched.

I might have zoned out at that part. I've always supported a woman's right to choose, and I said yes to that question back in 2021. What I don't support is celebrating abortion the way the current administration does. What I don't support is making New Jersey the abortion capital of the country, inviting other people from other states to come to New Jersey and have their abortions performed. I don't support that, let alone use taxpayer dollars to do that. also supports something that my opponent does not, parental notification.

In the state of New Jersey, you can't get your ears pierced under the age of 18 without the permission of your parents. But we're not going to notify parents when a 16 or 17-year-old is having an abortion before him. I think that's terribly wrong. I've yet defined the most liberal, maybe with one exception of women across the state, who support that policy. So that's where my position has always been on abortion. I've supported a woman's right to choose.

Mr. Chittarelli. We're not Texas. see any woman whose pregnancy is in trouble, whose health is at stake, they will be able to have their abortion perform safely by competent clinicians to protect the woman's health. We are not Texas. With regard to Planned Parenthood, the question I've always asked the Democrats in the Trenton is, why is it they get 100% of the money? Why is it we don't send any of the money the pregnancy resource centers like Lighthouse in Bergen County, for example? I don't think that's fair. Let's distribute the money equitably. But the point is he's basically a moderate, you know, he's a moderate New Jersey Republican.

So this idea that like he's just going to be 100% subservient to Trump on everything is a little bit of a stretch. Like maybe rhetorically he would be like Trump did endorse him in the primary, which means that he was automatically guaranteed to win the primary essentially. Because like whoever Trump endorses in a primary is almost assured to win. A Republican primary that is, especially in Congress on the state level, it's a little bit different. but nonetheless, Jack Chudarole did win partly on the strength of this endorsement from Trump. So, Mikey Cheryl, because New Jersey's more democratic, more of a democratic-leaning state,

wants to hype that Trump connection. Although it should be said that New Jersey did trend, New Jersey and New York, both, but New Jersey in particular trended significantly Republican into the 2024 presidential election. Like Trump won Passaic County, New Jersey, which would have been unthinkable just a few plicles ago,

like Hillary Clinton won it by like 30% or something like that. Biden won it last time by like 20 something percent. And then there was this gigantic shift to Trump in 2024, largely powered by Latino voters. So anyway, it's just, it's interesting to see how these national dynamics translate to a state race. And so that led to why I asked this question about Venezuela. Okay, not the most obvious state level issue in New Jersey.

however, if, you know, Chidorelli did, like, he was asked, like, how do you grade the Trump administration or Trump in the second term? And he gave him an A. So he's mostly supportive of Trump. And Trump and Rubio at all are now doing, you know, increasingly does seem like an overt regime change operation in Venezuela. And New Jersey does have one of the highest Venezuelan populations in the country. Florida, by far, is number one. It has like 50% of all Venezuelan Americans. But then it's New York. New Jersey and a handful of others, right? So if there was a regime change operation that was carried out in a Venezuela, it's conceivable that there would be more migratory outflows that could result in additional Venezuela. It's coming to New Jersey, especially if they have family or, you know, friends or whatever that are here. And so we'll play his response to my question and then his response to it.

Mr. Cinerrelli, let's be a little bit out of left field. But New Jersey has one of the highest populations of Pennsylvania residents in the country. And the Trump administration is currently waging what seems like it could be a regime change operation in Venezuela. Is that something that in principle you're in favor of even if it might result in the influx of family members or places of those Venezuela to New Jersey? I don't know enough about the issue to comment. All I'll say is we welcome as many legal immigrants as possible in New Jersey. So he basically didn't answer the question. He claimed he didn't know much about it.

Maybe that's true. Maybe he hasn't studied it. But you know, it is actually relevant. And okay, so why do I ask that question? and I kind of already explained it, but I like to sort of mix things up. Like reporters in general, Megan, you could probably attest to this at this point. They'll ask kind of just like narrative-based questions like a reporter asked yesterday. Something like, do you, well, New Jersey voters care that Mikey Cheryl might not be seen as an authentic New Jerseyan, right?

Because she's from Virginia. But Jack is like, you know, he has generations going back from Somerset County, New Jersey or whatever. when his ancestors came over from Ellis Island. I mean, people might relate to that, but it's just kind of like a dumb question. It's not policy-oriented. I mean, the sad truth is, like, people, they care about those kinds of questions way more.

At least, like, for TV, they're like, oh, what's Mikey? Cheryl's, like, does she, like, pork roll? Like, it's like, I don't, yeah, they're not great questions, but I understand, like, it's very suited for network TV. Yeah

You know there was this little controversy about Mikey Cheryl and the pork roll I mean actually if you watch the full clip of what she said She wasn't denouncing the pork roll She was endorsing Taylor Ham as how it's described right It's just like such a stupid like regional food debate Whatever I mean I am a fan of Taylor Ham I have to say It is a New Jersey delicacy

Trenton I think it was actually called the Trenton roll originally or like there was because I call I've always called it pork roll but see this is the big regional so to Megan's from Philadelphia I'm from Northern New Jersey Taylor nobody calls you don't if you call it a pork roll you get thrown out of wherever you happen to be okay well this is a stupid debate but this is unfortunately the thing that like it's like the Sunday sauce comment by Jack Chitterelli it's like that probably gravy not sauce that whatever it just probably like I don't know also Mikey Cheryl's response to that question

which was like what's something people may not know about you. This was during the debate. She was like, people may not know this, but I love going to my kids' sports games. That was just like so perfectly emblematic of how boring and banal and like over-rehearsed she is. Like they do one of these dumb, light-hearted questions toward the end. They do this at the person. What do you like? What do you like the most about your opponent?

Yeah. What do you like the most about them? And of course, like they both praise. They praise Jack's son's military service, and then he praised Mikey's military service. That's the most obvious answer anybody to possibly give. But then I guess they're supposed to give like a fun fact about one another. Yeah.

Or no, they're supposed to get a fun fact about themselves. Yeah, yeah. And Mikey's like, you know, people might not know this, but I really enjoy going to my children's sports games. I mean, give me a break. Yeah. It'd be funny or she said she hates it. Right.

Yeah, that's what I said. I mean, at least that would be funny and notable. like I actually kind of can't stand going to my children's dopey soccer games. She said she was like, I used to not like it, but now I like, I don't know. It was just like, okay, whatever. Okay, so the question that I asked Mikey, and because I'm very aggressive and bold and assertive, I think this was the first question at her press conference, right? Because I was like, raising my hand to make sure that she saw me.

But I noticed, and this was sort of like an on-the-fly question that I came up with, partially because Megan, you had been looking into her advocacy of these online safety measures which she had done a press conference about it. Maybe we can play a clip from her press conference or at least the most notable part of it. Because again, it does really get to her political orientation in general and what she's been up to in Congress since 2019. But over and over again, she was accusing Jack Chuderelli of engaging in misinformation over the course of this debate.

And she was using the term misinformation to like describe contested political claims essentially, right? And oftentimes the term misinformation has been used as a buzzword to justify censorship, especially online censorship, right? Because it's very dangerous to allow misinformation to proliferate. So I asked her like, why are you constantly using her misinformation to describe contested political claims? And we could hear the question in what she said. term misinformation to describe and tested political time. Often, misinformation has been used to justify censorship, especially on the internet, he said that they're just a better for the candidates on free speech.

So why does it constant use of that term? I guess because it just seems a little aggressive all the time to keep saying that he's lying. So what did you make of her, her answer to that? It was not helping her image. I don't, I think it was, it was a very dismissive way to answer the question. and I don't think she like fully, not that she didn't understand what you were asking, but it just goes to show that like she's genuinely one of those people who like uses the word misinformation without any criticism of that. We're like just, I think, accept to be true. Yeah, it's very like stuck in like a few years ago.

I don't know who, if you use the word like, we denounce misinformation, we must crack down. on misinformation, if that even still like really resonates with people, like maybe it resonates with her, you know, demographic that she's going after, which is very like center left, like, upstanding citizen moms or something who are like, oh, misinformation, that sounds really bad. And they just, you know, associate. All right. We don't need to talk about my mom. You brought her up.

Okay, okay. But they're like, you know, like your average like CNN watcher who's like, we must crack down on this, like we can, and they don't have any concerns for like, how does this relate to censorship or freedom of speech? And they see kind of an unfiltered internet as an extreme threat. And, you know, even when the things that were considered misinformation like five years ago are now kind of just part of our common like political discourse. So. Yeah, it was just a very dismissive response to your question, and I don't think she, or maybe she kind of clocked like where you were coming from and thought that you were some sort of like Info-Worsy person or something and was like- What? Info-worsy person. I mean, I will admit that my tone, which I know everybody's very concerned about tone and tone policing, my tone was fairly, I would say, mildly scornful. just because I didn't find it annoying and obnoxious that she kept saying misinformation over

and over again like we were joking during the debate you know take a shot every time she says misinformation and then sure enough like two minutes later she would say it again and it's the most like in apt context in which she uses that term right? Yeah it also didn't even make she she was just using it for lies

just say lies these are lies like that's what she meant to say but she was like no it sounded too rude to say lies like I don't know right so she uses this like bureaucrofit generated bureaucratized term. Right. It's a very,

misinformation, which again, just gets to her sensibility politically, which I do find very annoying. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, just talk briefly about this measure she's promoting in terms of the online safety thing because it does get to like we, it's,

she's been very ambiguous as to what her legislative priorities would even be, but apparently this could be one of them in terms of like a state level online safety, measure. So what's she up to with that? So she basically wants to open up a center to study online safety, essentially, which would be housed presumably at one of the public schools in New York, or not, sorry, oh my God, I have New York brain, in New Jersey. And also she's proposed, I think she's supported out to check the COSA Act in Congress, but I need to double check on that. But basically she wants to like hold tech companies accountable and prevent algorithms from like feeding young people certain content.

And I mean, it's tricky because like, yes, like socially I think this is something that, you know, tech companies should have to start thinking about. But as you can see like in the UK, when you have official government censorship of these things and you require age verification, to actually enact these policies, it often does lead to censorship and prevents everyone from accessing information. And in general, it's like, I don't think these people understand that there are social ways if you don't want your kids, like, seeing certain things on social media, that you can enforce that as like a concerned parent without leaving this up to the government who will inevitably just use this to like grab more power and prevent people from.

seeing views that are considered extreme, which is just a very vague word and can just be used to like filter out opinions that like challenge power, full centers. Or filter out whatever Mikey Sherrill considers to be misinformation. Exactly. Also, it's interesting like how would a state enact this and she said that she's looking to California for guidance on some of these policies. So I guess California is leading. Yeah. So it's whatever Gavin News. some considers to be misinformation.

Yeah. And also, whatever Mikey Sherrill's proposing in New Jersey, like if she's saying that she's going to have the taxpayers fund some kind of new research center associated with Rutgers or whatever other university, I guess she has in mind, that's inevitably. They're inevitably just going to produce a whole bunch of like BS reports and studies. It's going to be make work. It's just going to be like part of this NGO complex that Democrats love and like Mikey Cheryl is a perfect, you know, emblem of. where they don't even like do, like, let's say there is a real ethical quandary that has to be studied or resolved in terms of the adverse effects that teens or whomever get from using social media platforms.

I just don't buy that like whatever program Mikey Sherrill wants to subsidize is going to come up with it. It's going to just like create these like make work little grants and stuff for all these, you know, faux academicians. Is that the term academics to study something and just get money for it because it's supposedly so public spirit? I mean, it's just like a recipe for nonsense, I think. Yeah. I mean, to be clear, like I do think it is a problem that is in the public interest, but I don't, as like, a taxpayer necessarily know if I want to pay for that or if that should be like left to a private institution and it also shouldn't be used to justify like age verification laws for like also I don't even know how like New Jersey would enforce this like within the state like how would

how would that work like are there there aren't really like tech companies that are based in New Jersey that this would affect California I could see this maybe like working a little bit more since the companies are based there but I don't know well we have had I mean there have been Republican states actually that have been increasingly passing age verification for more like I guess porn sites. Right. So I guess there is a mechanism there that can be triggered even if the company is not corporately housed in like Texas where I think they did pass this recently.

But I would have to look more into the specifics of that. Yeah. But I mean like the age verification for something like Instagram or Facebook or Snapchat, which are these are the platforms where they say like people are being fed, either like very depressing or extreme content, that means that like, like everyone would need to verify their age in order to access like certain content it just I don't know it also gets rid of anonymity online which I see some issues with that so yeah okay and finally I um I was able to bring up my own personal bugaboo which is uh Jeffrey Epstein

remember him wait really well you know what it wasn't my doing this that's that this became an issue in the New Jersey gubernatorial election, as bizarre as that sounds, because Mikey Cheryl is still a sitting member of Congress, and she has signed on to this discharge petition for this legislation to bring this legislation up for a vote to supposedly release the Epstein files, right? This is the Rokana and Thomas Massey legislation that all Democrats support in the House, as well as a handful of Republicans like Massey, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Bobert, etc. But Mikey has been trying to use this to basically, just as an attack against Jack Chidorelli, because the idea is, and we can put up her Facebook little statement that she made last month on this. But she says that, you know, she's signing, she's heroically signing on to this discharge petition, but Jack won't support, we'll never support it because he's worried that Trump is in the Epstein files, right? So he wants to keep the Epstein files concealed. And it's just so stupid because, like, everybody knows that Trump is, like, quote, in. Epstein files doesn't mean that he's incriminated any sex trafficking activities, but

like people don't know enough about it to even comment. And people think that like the Epstein files are going to be released as a result of this legislation, which is also not true because it contains exceptions for victims identifying information and even national security. I won't get into the whole speech on that. But I know, I did think it was worth bringing up, because it has been introduced as an issue, bizarrely enough, into this gubernatorial race, which gets to, again, how these races get nationalized and how more nationally relevant issues get imported into a state-based context. Because, you know, Jack Chirorely, he has no role in the Amstine files.

You know, he's a former New Jersey state assemblyman who was kind of a chronic candidate for governor now. I think this is his third race, right? I actually didn't even know he ran. I forgot he ran the first time. I think it was in a Republican primary that he lost. But this is his third go. at a New Jersey gubernatorial race, and he's been the nominee for the Republicans

in two consecutive cycles now. But, you know, this is basically just a cheap attack line that Mikey tried to use against him, and so I asked Jack Chitterelli about this. So a congresswoman, Cheryl said last month that you're afraid to support the release of the Epstein files because Donald Trump is in them. What is your response to that?

Have you articulated a view? on that issue? I have a very consistent response to a great many things she says. It's a lie. I've said publicly, release the files. So there you go. He says he wants to release the files. He has no power at all to make that happen, but I guess if you just say, release the files,

everybody starts cheering and applauding your commitment to transparency vis-a-vis Epstein and Childson. It's a fair answer. It's a fair answer, you know, given what I'm sure he minimally knows about the whole Epstein thing. Anyway, that was my big public service.

last night bringing up Epstein. So, Megan, any concluding thoughts? How did you find the whole thing? You find the experience? I think this was your first question that you were able to ask at a major press conference, right? No, no, okay. Well, whatever.

I'm giving you accolades and kudos. It was interesting. I mean, again, it is like, it seems kind of obscure, but it is, I think, an important national race and, I don't know, perhaps a bellwether in some ways. So. Yeah, like every, it's like a sort of a bellwether for, you know, New Jersey and Virginia are always kind of a bellwether for like what the political sentiment is at a given time, given whatever administration's in power.

I'm a little, still a little skeptical that Mikey, however lacklester, I find her candidacy is actually going to lose because I think the national headwinds probably favor Democrats now, just as they did in 2017 when Murphy won during Trump's first term. Likewise, in Obama's first year, Chris Christie, who was a Republican, did win a gubernatorial race. So, like, there's sort of an ebb and flow there in terms of the national dynamic. But you never know. I mean, people might think that they can harness the spirit of Charlie Kirk or whatever to get a Republican elected. Actually, Charlie Kirk did come up in the debate last night, right? So that's another national issue. Yeah.

I don't know if we want to get into that. We don't have to get into that. But, like, it was just like another example of, like, a national issue that kind of gets transparent. according to the state dynamic. Anyway. Yeah. So Megan, yes,

good chat. We went a little longer than we have planned, but hey, that's what the people demand. Yep. Thanks. All right.

Talk to you later. Bye.