(upbeat music) - We're now joined by Jack Ciattarelli, former state assemblyman, Republican candidate for Governor of New Jersey, part of our series looking at 2025.

So Jack, good to have you with us, number one.

- Good to be back with you.

- You got it.

Just I asked Mayor Baraka this question on the first half.

Governor Ciattarelli, first day of office, January 2026, first couple items are?

- Oh, on day one, executive order number one, we don't let any town in New Jersey be a sanctuary city and we're not gonna be a sanctuary state.

I nominate an attorney general who's gonna support both police and parents.

We get our state workers back to work.

Too many are still working from home.

It's why you can't get people on the phone.

I call for the resignation of all those that sit on the state board of education that has made a number of changes to the public school curriculum that a lot of parents find offensive.

And I scrap Phil Murphy's ill-conceived and irrational energy plan.

That's day one.

- Hold on, go back.

That's a lot on day one, Jack, but go back.

What's the problem with being a sanctuary state or sanctuary cities?

- I think it encourages illegal immigration, Steve, and with a porous border, we can't afford to be a sanctuary, have sanctuary cities or be a sanctuary state.

We should not be encouraging illegal immigration.

We're all border states right now based on what's happening on the border.

- What's your concern about the clean energy initiative of the energy initiative of the governor?

- I'm never gonna tell people what car they have to buy.

I'm never gonna tell them how to heat their homes.

The markets will do that, and I do believe those windmills off our Jersey shore are bad economic policy, bad energy policy, and bad environmental policy.

We need to transition to the future, but we need a rational transition.

And I also don't know how we achieve energy independence by giving away a billion dollars in tax credits of our money to foreign companies to put windmills off our Jersey shore.

- But Jack, that's what you wouldn't do.

The question is, what would, should the Ciattarelli policy be to deal with the fact that climate change is real and we have to make real changes in energy policy?

- And I do believe climate change is real and accelerated by human activity.

But I wanna make first, New Jerseyans feel good about what we're doing right here at home.

More than 40% of our electricity comes from nuclear power, zero carbon emissions.

More than 10% of our electricity comes from solar, zero carbon emissions.

We need more solar, and we need to put the emphasis behind micro nuclear.

That's the wave of the future until some of these other technologies like carbon capture and hydrogen cell technologies catch up.

- Let's talk urban policy.

A graphic will come up called urban matters.

The urban agenda, if you will, for a Governor Ciattarelli looks like what?

- Oh, economic development.

Revitalization and renaissance like we've seen in small urban centers.

Where I now live, Somerville, we've seen this.

10 years ago, Somerville was totally dependent on state emergency municipal aid to balance their budget.

Today they're not dependent on any aid and they have $5 million dollars surplus.

Why?

Because we've gone up with affordable housing, high density housing in the right kind of way.

We have a New Jersey transit bus line on Main Street.

We have New Jersey transit train station in town, and it works.

And we support Main Street with all that new foot traffic.

We've gotta replicate that model in our larger urban centers and I'll make that happen as Governor.

- Jack, you mentioned NJ Transit.

Can't talk about New Jersey Transit without talking about the fiscal crisis going on there.

The governor has a plan to help fund it.

What's yours?

- I oppose that- - 'Cause if not, it's going under.

It's not my opinion, go ahead.

- I opposed the corporate transfer fee.

It's just increasing the business tax in New Jersey.

We're already an outlier.

We need to be regionally competitive.

- Hold on Jack, Jack, time out.

Let's make sure if everybody knows the governor's proposed that businesses that earn over $10 million a year pay a percent, a couple percentage more in taxes and that would help fund New Jersey Transit, which is seriously in the red.

You don't like that because?

- Because it's not the way to make New Jersey regionally competitive by overtaxing our businesses.

Pennsylvania's business tax is heading toward 5%.

We're heading in the opposite direction.

Exxon Mobil just moved outta Hunterdon County.

In the 1970s, New Jersey was home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other state in the country, not the case today.

We have a dedicated revenue stream.

It's called the New Jersey State Budget.

How has it Phil Murphy increased the annual pension payment from $3 billion, Chris Christie's last, to $7 billion, a full payment without a dedicated revenue stream?

Because he made it a priority in the state budget, a state budget that now by the way is $56 billion, $20 billion more than Chris Christie's last.

We have a dedicated revenue stream.

It's called the New Jersey State Budget.

Let's just set the right priorities, and get the right leadership at NJ Transit.

- Let's talk about state funding to public schools.

The state school, I'm not gonna get into the weeds here, but there's a state school funding formula, if you will.

- We need a new one.

- That looks like what?

- Simply this, every school district gets X for every English speaking student, gets Y for every English language learner.

The state takes over the cost of special education, and we make sure that every school district's cost per pupil is within a reasonable range.

It's no accident that the districts that get the greatest amount of money have a cost per pupil that's off the charts and in many cases, a substandard outcome.

Newark alone, over $1 billion in taxpayer dollars from across the state, and four out of five kids are not on grade level in reading, writing, and math.

We need to fix that.

- Yeah, but that doesn't, but we had, but hold on, you're not debating Mayor Baraka and that's not our approach.

It's policy oriented, individual conversation, individual people.

But the mayor argued, look, our kids face challenges that other kids don't face.

That's not an excuse.

Many people would argue that's the reality, particularly during COVID.

It was worse for those kids.

You say?

- Steve, this is exactly the argument that hasn't been heard by the State Supreme Court that I will make sure they do hear.

You're never gonna justify to me why some districts have a cost per pupil of $35,000 per and others have a cost per pupil of $16,000 per, and it's no accident that those that have the $35,000 per are the ones that get the greatest amount of state aid.

No transparency, no accountability, and lesser standards.

I'm not gonna leave any kid behind.

I'm not gonna leave any community behind.

But I'm telling you, there's gonna be transparency and there's going to be accountability.

- Okay, so we'll keep talking issues, but can we clarify this?

Important issue, Supreme Court has, a couple years ago they decided on Roe v. Wade, they overturned it.

What is your view of what the state policy should be?

It was codified, if you will, the right to a legal abortion in the state of New Jersey.

Would you in any way attempt to change that?

- My position hasn't changed on this issue, Steve.

I've got a very strong Libertarian streak and us Libertarians do not like big government involved in deeply personal decisions.

I believe this is a deeply personal decision between a woman, her partner, her medical professionals, and her God if she so believes.

And so I've always respected a woman's right to choose.

- Okay, so, this is an issue, and it's about our democracy.

So it's interesting.

President Trump, the leader of your party nationally, candidate for president as we speak, first day, I'm gonna pardon the folks involved in January 6th, many call it an insurrection, hard to debate that it was not.

Do you believe it's the right thing to grant pardons to those folks?

- If those people have broken the law, and I do believe people broke the law on that day, they should be prosecuted a full extent of law and in my opinion, not be pardoned.

- Got it.

You said, I'll get off the Trump thing in a second, but I need to clarify something.

I've asked you this a couple times, Jack, I'm not sure what year it was, but whether it was '16 or '20, you called Donald Trump- - It was 2016, Steve.

- You call him a charlatan, and you said he's not fit to be president, 2016.

What has changed significantly in your view regarding former President Trump?

- I was very disappointed in President Trump back then when he made some derogatory comments about a Mexican American judge.

But at the same time, after his presidency, policies have worked.

I think it's very interesting now that Joe Biden has invoked his policies, Donald Trump's on Chinese tariffs.

That's something he condemned Donald Trump for.

He's now putting place limitations on asylum seekers.

He condemned Donald Trump for that.

So Donald Trump's policies were working and I just think he's a much better choice than Joe Biden, Steve.

- What is the greatest concern you have about the Biden presidency and a future potential Biden presidency and its impact?

I know I don't like to ask three part questions, on New Jersey?

- Well, lemme say this, nationwide, people see every day what's going on on the border.

I think that's wrong.

People see what's going on on our college campuses.

They see what's going on in the community with lawlessness in terms of break-ins and car thefts.

They see the price of groceries.

I do think they also see a president, as I do, that's beyond his years in terms of meeting the demands of the job.

And very importantly, a vice president that's unqualified for the position.

For all those reasons, I believe Donald Trump will win the presidency in November.

- All right, lemme try this issue.

The Open Public Records Act, OPRA, the Open Public Records Act.

I don't wanna go into the great details of this, but if you were a governor, would you have done what Governor Murphy did, which was to sign significant, the OPRA, the changes to the Open Public Records Act, the law?

- As long as that bill had the support of the County Clerks Association and to the best of my knowledge, it had the support of all 21 County Clerks who are the ones that deal with OPRA requests, and those are Democrats, Republicans, male and female, Black and white and Brown.

As far as I know, it was supported by all 21.

Yes, I would support the bill.

I've always felt that we need to deal with commercial requests.

I've never liked the idea of people coming in, dropping off OPRA requests, getting all that information and selling for a profit.

Nor have I ever liked the idea of you applying for a dog license.

And then next thing you know, you're being pounded with commercial interest trying to get you to buy dog products.

That wasn't the intent of the original law.

My understanding is this reform fixes that.

- You would've, okay, you wouldn't have done anything differently than what Governor Murphy did?

- I would've looked more deeply at some of the aspects of the bill that might've troubled me and then had done a conditional veto, but the best of my knowledge that bill had the support of all 21 county clerks.

- Last question, Jack, I got 40 seconds left.

How confident are you that this is gonna be an issue-oriented, honest, when I say honest, I mean a meaningful campaign without name calling and nastiness and all kinds of other stuff that people are sick of?

- I don't concern myself, Steve, with what the other guys do.

I know what I'm gonna do and I'm gonna talk about the issues that matter to New Jerseyans and that's taxes, safe communities, public education, and the like.

Economic development for our major urban centers.

I'm a policy guy and I will speak to the issues that matter.

- Jack Ciattarelli is the Republican candidate for governor.

We're talking to a whole range of folks who are running for governor as part of our Decision 2025 program and who will be New Jersey's next Governor.

Jack, thank you so much.

Wish you and your family all the best.

- Thank you, Steve.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato, thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

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