Title: As Goes New Jersey?

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David Furst: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm David Furst, WNYC's Weekend Edition Host, filling in for Brian today. Brian will be back on Monday. Coming up on today's show for our 30 Issues in 30 Days Election Series, it is Issue Number 10, New Jersey Transit. We'll talk about how the system has bedeviled commuters in recent years and what each of the candidates for governor say they'll do to fix it. Plus, later in the show, WNYC and Gothamist reporter Giulia Heyward joins us to share her reporting. She has been tracking what the Trump administration is doing to curtail the rights of LGBTQ New Yorkers.

We wrap up today's show with a conversation about one of our favorite topics, trees. Tomorrow is the fourth annual City of Forest Day, and there are lots of events scheduled to celebrate. We'll talk with a guest from the Parks Department who will explain what's going on and why they are celebrating forests and trees this weekend. Meanwhile, we are on Day 3 of the federal government shutdown. President Trump has been talking about slashing Democratic priorities and about the possible mass firings of federal workers. The administration has already canceled green energy projects in Democratic states and withheld funds for projects in New York.

As WNYC's transportation reporter Stephen Nessen has been reporting, the federal government is putting on hold about $18 billion worth of funding for the Hudson River Gateway Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway extension, with the White House citing the state's diversity, equity and inclusion requirements as the reason. While we contemplate the impact of the shutdown and the possible political fallout, New Jersey is feeling the white hot spotlight of national attention on its governor's race. Governor Phil Murphy's eight-year term is coming to an end, and Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Democrat Mikie Sherrill are locked in a tight election.

Joining us now is Russell Berman, a staff writer at The Atlantic who has covered Congress and national politics. His latest pieces have focused on government shutdown politics and on the New Jersey governor's race. Russell Berman, welcome to The Brian Lehrer Show.

Russell Berman: Thanks for having me.

David Furst: Russell, let's start with the shutdown. You contributed to two articles on the shutdown this week. One on Trump's grand plan for a government shutdown, how the Trump administration might use a shutdown to finish the job that DOGE started, and another on how Democrats backed themselves into a shutdown, arguing that the Democrats surrendered a spending fight in March and that all but foretold the October shutdown. Let's start right there. First of all, talk about that. Explain what you mean about the Democrats.

Russell Berman: Sure. This is the sixth government shutdown that we've had in the last three decades, and it was easily the most foreseeable. It basically became all but inevitable from the moment that Democrats surrendered the last spending fight in March, when we came up once again to a funding deadline. It looked like the government might shut down, and at just about the last moment, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer persuaded a number of his colleagues to keep the government open. He argued at the time that it would be worse to have a shutdown under Trump.

That Trump would essentially weaponize the shutdown and make it even worse than agreeing to a Republican spending bill. The blowback from the Democratic base and even some elected Democratic leaders, there was a tension between Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. All of that blowback essentially made it inevitable that they would dig in deeper this time with this deadline, which came about earlier this week. When that deadline came, they did not give in, and so the government shut down. Of course, they're fighting over a specific issue, continuing subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, where, if those expire at the end of the year, health insurance rates for millions of people will go up. The dynamics of that, of this fight, were set several months ago.

David Furst: According to the Associated Press, the Trump administration is cutting nearly $8 billion in clean energy projects in states that backed Kamala Harris. As we mentioned at the top of the show, the federal government is putting about $18 billion on hold for the Hudson River Gateway Tunnel and the Second Avenue Subway extension. Can you talk about how the Trump administration is perhaps using the shutdown to, as you put it in that Atlantic piece, finish the job that DOGE started?

Russell Berman: Sure. This is pretty clearly they're not really hiding it This is just punishment for Democrats. This funding for the Gateway Tunnel and the Second Avenue Subway is designed to hit the two leaders of the Democratic Party who are both from New York, New York City, in fact, Schumer and Jeffries. Then, the clean energy funding, they listed the states where that would be affected, and they were all states that voted for Kamala Harris as opposed to Donald Trump last year. Even though they're they're making a very tiny show of it being based on some sort of merit or legitimate reason, it's really just punishment.

This is more or less what Schumer was warning about six months ago, which is that we've seen that Donald Trump and Russell Vought, his budget director, they are on this drive to consolidate power in the presidency and the executive branch. Schumer warned six months ago that a shutdown would allow them or would embolden them and empower them to do even more. That's what they're doing right here. The question is whether it will push Democrats away from the table or encourage them to compromise. So far, it hasn't encouraged them to compromise. We're in, what, Day 3 of the shutdown right now, and we don't have a deal. It seems right around the corner.

David Furst: We are speaking with Russell Berman, staff writer at The Atlantic. If you would like to join this conversation, call us 212-433-WNYC. That is 212-433-9692. I want to play a little bit of audio right here. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke about the shutdown on NPR's Morning Edition today. Host Steve Inskeep asked her about the Gateway Tunnel project funding that was put on hold. Let's listen to that whole exchange.

Steve Inskeep: When the administration canceled an $18 billion spending on infrastructure projects in New York City, was that a shot at Chuck Schumer of New York and Democrats in general in a blue state?

Karoline Leavitt: Look, this is one of the many things we're taking a look at. What are these wasteful projects doing? By the way, the reason for that is because the Department of Transportation workers who were working and pushing out the funds for that were all furloughed. They can't show up to work right now, so that project is currently temporarily halted because of Chuck Schumer's shutdown. Chuck Schumer did that to himself. He did that to his constituents in New York. If the government remained open because Chuck Schumer and the Democrats voted for it, that infrastructure project would be ongoing right now.

Steve Inskeep: Oh, interesting. I thought it had been canceled. You're saying it's only temporary. That's helpful.

David Furst: Okay. A lot to talk about right there.

Russell Berman: Yes.

David Furst: I should note work is already underway on both the Second Avenue Subway and Gateway Tunnel projects. If you could, let's just first respond to that exchange if you want to jump in right there.

Russell Berman: Sure. We have a number. They're now giving multiple reasons for why they are withholding this money. As Steve indicated, we don't really even know if it's temporary or canceled. The official reason they gave was because they are going to review whether the state and the project in its awarding of contracts violated the administration's policies against diversity, equity and inclusion, which is completely separate issue. It just seems like, again, this came about almost like they were picking just the biggest thing that they could find in the New York region without even necessarily thinking through what their exact reason was, and whether they were going to acknowledge or not that it was specifically a punishment against the Democratic leaders in Congress.

David Furst: How difficult is it for a project of this magnitude to move forward if there is this perhaps continuing threat that funding could be put on hold or canceled at any minute?

Russell Berman: In the long term and maybe even the medium term, it's very difficult, but as you alluded to, it's not clear that in the short term this will have any effect on the project because work has already begun. It is ongoing. I can't tell you exactly what phase it's in. It's, both of these projects are years in the making and are going to take years to complete. It depends as to whether in the account, in the money that has already been doled out, whether they are using that money to continue work. Then, when they need the next tranche of money, that is when they likely would face a decision as to whether they need to stop work.

The federal government is not executing this project. The federal government has been giving money to this project that is being executed by state and local officials. I'm not an expert on the construction of this project, but basically, what we understand is that for right now they may be able to continue work because they have some money in their accounts, just like there are parts of the federal government, like in the court system, that can operate for now because they still have money for the next few days or the next couple of weeks before they're going to need more from the federal government.

David Furst: If you'd like to join this conversation, the number 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Here's a question for you. We have a text saying, "Please ask your guest, and this is something I've heard a lot of people talking about, "Is it possible for New York and other 'Democratic cities' to withhold sending state dollars to the federal government?"

Russell Berman: If you ask some local officials, I believe the mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has suggested this, and others in California, as well as New York. I think it's possible, but it would escalate. Then you could get into a whole, really escalatory-it's not even a word- situation between Trump and the Trump administration and the power of the federal government. Yes, this is something that we may see, but I can't tell you if it has any chance of success. The more likely avenue and the avenue that states and cities have taken so far is to bring the Trump administration to court. Even on this Second Avenue Subway and Gateway Tunnel project funding, if this extends more than a few days and the impact starts to become real on these projects, you're likely to see them challenged in court. We'll see how those cases proceed.

David Furst: Let's hear one more clip from that conversation with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on NPR this morning. Here is Steve Inskeep asking about what else the administration might do during the shutdown.

Steve Inskeep: The administration says it's preparing to fire people. I know there was a meeting about that earlier in the week, and the president said before the shutdown, "We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them." What is the reason to do bad things here, and what bad things are planned?

Karoline Leavitt: Unfortunately, we have to do things we don't want to do because the government is completely shut down and there's zero money coming into the federal government's coffers.

Steve Inskeep: People are still paying taxes.

Karoline Leavitt: Right now, the Office of Management and Budget is taking a hard look at the balance sheet and having to understand what agencies do we have to cut, who do we have to lay off in order to keep this thing running and in order to be good stewards of the American taxpayer dollar.

David Furst: When we're talking about possible firings or putting funding on hold, what else might we see happen during the shutdown, along these lines?

Russell Berman: The broad dynamic here is that the Trump administration, President Trump, Russell Vought, the budget director, want to make this shutdown even more painful for Democrats than shutdowns already have been in the past. In the past, generally, federal workers get furloughed. Many of them who are non-essential do not come to work. Then, as soon as the shutdown ends, whether it's a few days or a few weeks, Congress passes a law making sure that they get paid for the time that they were furloughed, and so the impact is not that great.

Now, though, Trump-- They warned about this before the shutdown happened, that they would take it a step further and actually lay people off, make them permanently fire more federal workers. Again, this is something they haven't done it yet. We may hear an announcement as soon as later today about that, or we'll see what happens with it. I would expect that they would try to carry through this threat because they have been willing to obviously fire thousands of federal workers over the course of this year without authority from Congress. This is all about maximizing the pain for Democrats to get them to surrender.

David Furst: We're speaking with Russell Berman, staff writer at The Atlantic. Let's take a call. You can join the conversation, 212-433-9692. Diane in South Orange, welcome.

Diane: Hi. It's my opinion that Trump was going to do all of this anyway. I think that Schumer should just hold on. I think whatever Trump is doing to try and hurt the Democrats at this point and bring them to the table, he was going to do anyway. He's a vicious person, and he was going to attack all the blue states and hurt them as much as possible anyway. It doesn't matter if Schumer gives in. He's going to do what he's going to do.

David Furst: Russell, what's your response to that, that the Democrats shouldn't change tactic here and Trump is going to do what Trump is going to do?

Russell Berman: That's a really salient point because basically, that is what has changed, at least publicly, from Schumer's posture, if you compare now to six months ago when he decided not to shut down the government, essentially. Which is, now he's like, "Look, we've seen six more months of the president and his administration ignoring Congress, punishing his political opponents, be they Democrats, or be they people like Jim Comey, the former FBI director who is indicted. Nothing that they are threatening now is anything different than what they've already been doing."

To the caller's point, Schumer and other Democrats have already argued again, they're just going to do this anyway, so now is the time that we actually have to fight. That is underpinning their argument right now, but again, we'll see how long that lasts because the shutdown has only been a few days old. We've had shutdowns that have lasted more than a month. Every day or every week that it goes on, the dynamic changes a little bit.

David Furst: What is the resolution if we're thinking about all of that?

Russell Berman: I don't think the resolution is going to come in Trump changing his style. Now, we may get, and Karoline Leavitt alluded to this possibility, that if Democrats agree at some point to reopen the government, suddenly the funding that has been either canceled or withheld is moved through. That's one possibility. The other thing is when we're going back to the debate over health care, and this is the fight that Democrats have decided to make, which is to say we need, and the country needs to extend these subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.

They don't expire until the end of the year, so Congress does have a few more months to deal with them. There are Republicans who want to deal with them both in the Senate and, to a lesser extent, in the House. When the shutdown ends, it is probably going to be because there's been some deal worked out in the Senate between Democrats and Republicans, either to extend these subsidies or maybe more likely to at least talk about and negotiate formally the extension of these subsidies. Republicans don't want to commit to anything while the government is shut down, because they equate that with negotiating with hostage takers, them being the Democrats in this case.

If they hold to that position, the Democrats are going to have to decide what commitment do we need and what commitment can we accept short of right now extending those subsidies. That's what this fight is going to be about, more than Trump's entire presidency and his strategy of attacking his political opponents.

David Furst: Soon we're going to shift to a focus on the New Jersey governor's race, but we definitely want to try to take another call here. The number 212-433-9692, if you want to try to get a quick call in. Are you a federal employee? Are you directly affected by the shutdown? Give us a call. Let us know. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Let's hear now from Jeff in Putnam County. Welcome.

Jeff: Thanks very much. Obviously, the government shutdown is not a situation devoutly to be wished. On the other hand, as the Democrats have pointed out, the next big thing is those cuts to health care that come after the first of the year. Of course, now those of us who need to make those choices in the next several weeks are wondering what the pool of the insured is going to look like and how that will affect our premiums coming up. In the meantime, what strikes me about all of this, and especially in that clip you played with Steve Inskeep muttering, "People are still paying taxes," while Karoline Leavitt just blows right by it, where is the accounting. the true, right-now dollar amounts, not some Silicon Valley math about future dollars regarding what has been saved?

What exactly has been saved? Obviously, the enormous amounts that were struck from USAID, this great unwinding of anything Biden touched or certainly Obama touched, is maddening enough, but there doesn't seem to be any serious effort made to actually account for number one, gold-plated ballrooms and jets from Qatar and how that affects the coffers of the Treasury.

David Furst: Russell, do you want to try to tackle that question from Jeff?

Russell Berman: The question of how much DOGE and the Trump administration more broadly have saved is a big one. It seems like they haven't saved all that much. He mentioned USAID, and part of the whole debate there was that foreign aid is a drop in the bucket relative to the entire federal budget. We saw even when Elon Musk was in power, empowered through DOGE, he started out talking about saving a trillion dollars, and then that number just kept going down and down and down. Suddenly, Elon Musk was back to work at Tesla and SpaceX and not for the federal government. I'm not sure that we'll ever get an exact accounting of how much they saved, but I think the general consensus is that it was not all that much because a lot of the actions they took actually spent more money than they were cutting.

David Furst: Let's take another call. A different take here from Scott in SoHo. Welcome to The Brian Lehrer Show.

Scott: Yes, hi. Thanks for taking the call. I was curious. You've mentioned the Affordable Care Act, I guess is one of my questions, is, are the cuts going back to pre-COVID pricing, or is that what the argument was? Not giving people the money when they were out of work because the government was shut down for, now if we look back, as for no really good reason? I'm just curious. The argument is that the cuts to money that was added to the discounts during COVID were going away, which I think in the law that it was posted that they were supposed to go away in 2025.

David Furst: Do you want to respond to that, Russell?

Russell Berman: Yes, and that is a key point in the debate because most of the Republicans in the House and in the Senate oppose extending these subsidies at all for that reason. This is, as the caller said, going back to the pre-COVID rate. Now it's been four or five years. The people who have been helped by that, to them, it's still going to be a huge increase in their health insurance coverage at a time when, as we know, costs are going up. You have the effect of Trump's tariffs potentially on inflation. Even some Republicans in the House and Senate, even though they know that, yes, this was all initially about helping people during the pandemic, they worry about the political impact next year during the midterms if their constituents see a huge spike in their health insurance coverage.

Then, to a point that a previous caller was making about what impact these increased rates will have on the health of the marketplace, the market, because it depends on enough people buying insurance from that marketplace to make it work. That's how insurance works. Even though, yes, it was a COVID-era policy, the impact of a spike in insurance rates could have both, individually, on the people paying them and on the broader market, is something that certainly Democrats, but also some Republicans, are concerned about.

David Furst: Let's take another call. Laura in the Bronx, welcome. You have a question.

Laura: Hi. Thank you very much. I have two points to make. First of all, your guest I think is incorrect in saying that we have until the end of the year to deal with these health care subsidy increases. Senator Murray, I think it's Patty Murray, has said vehemently that the notices about increases are being fabricated now. They are about to or are in the mail to people who have been receiving those subsidies. This is not an issue that can wait until the end of the year, and that needs to be publicized. There is no delay, there is no time lapse that we have to wait. This is incorrect information, according to the senator. Maybe you have other information, but this is what I am cognizant of. The second point--

David Furst: Do you want to focus on that question first right now? Someone else texting right now, "Also, the ACA marketplace for next year opens in a few weeks." Russell, do you want to jump in?

Russell Berman: This goes to the dual impacts, the impacts on the individual payers and their rates. Their rates would not go up until after the end of the year in terms of what they actually pay. Yes, there is that concern about the notices going out, and if people see that sticker shock, and then they decide to not renew or buy insurance, the impact that that could have on the broader market is a concern for Democrats. Now, I would counter by saying that Congress, whether it's this issue or other issues, they wait until the final deadline all of the time.

It would not be unusual for them to wait for that final deadline at the end of the year, even though there would be notices going out beforehand. We've seen that before. Yes, the Democrats are making a point that now is an important time to deal with this issue, but there are a couple of deadlines at play.

David Furst: Laura, I know you had a second question. Can you ask that quickly?

Laura: Yes, thank you. It's less a question than a suggestion.

David Furst: Oh, sorry, a point.

Laura: The current administration has proven itself to be vicious, vindictive, and parasitic. I think GOP now stands for genocidal oppressor parasite. It works for the rich people in this country. It works to protect what they call American taxpayer dollars, but not Americans. It's working for dollars, but not for people. What I suggest is that every person who's been fired, who's been let go in the federal government, and any person who's been secondarily affected by those firings, plus every person in the union, every person in the Democratic Party, and every person who still cares about democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law, hit the streets and be encouraged by leading Democrats.

If there are any leading Republicans left, I don't think there are any, but leaders among the Democratic Party to get out and shut this country down in a general strike, because that is what is going to be needed in order to save this country at this point. We've seen the history of the administration. They bomb innocent people in boats without pretext.

David Furst: Laura, I want to make sure our guest has a time to respond to this. Thank you so much. A lot of passion at this moment right now. Russell, I want you to respond to some of this. We also have a text saying, "I'm afraid the Democrats are going to end up caving since the GOP administration basically doesn't care how much pain and grief is being inflicted, and the Democrats do." This is a text. "Am I wrong?" this person asking. If you could respond to all of that.

Russell Berman: Yes, no, sure. This speaks to a level of anger and passion and concern and fear in the Democratic base and among, frankly, a large portion of the country. This is a dynamic that Democrats are dealing with, where there's a sense that, even in this government shutdown, that they're not fighting hard enough. They're not mobilizing. It is a question of we haven't seen the scale of protests in the streets that we saw during the first Trump administration, or even referencing a general strike, the protests that have been seen in Israel over the past couple of years.

That is a question about whether Democrats are-- They're basically trying to fight in the conventional way. They're fighting within Congress. They're trying to win the elections that are happening this year. Then, of course, they're trying to win the much bigger elections in the midterms next year. That is all well and good, but there are a lot of people who think that they need to be doing more and that they need to be literally out on the street protesting in a way that they're not.

David Furst: I'm David Furst, WNYC's Weekend Edition Host. I'm filling in for Brian Lehrer today. We are speaking with Russell Berman, a staff writer at The Atlantic. You have also written this week about the New Jersey governor's race. We're going to shift to that topic coming up next. If you'd like to join that conversation, same number, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-9692. We'll take a quick break. More coming up next. It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm David Furst in for Brian today. We're here with Russell Berman, staff writer at The Atlantic. His latest pieces have been focusing on government shutdown politics, but also on the New Jersey governor's race. We're going to shift our discussion to that race right now. Russell, the headline of your article that ran earlier this week was The Blue State That's Now a Bellwether. Can you talk about what you mean there?

Russell Berman: Sure. New Jersey is no one's idea of a swing state. Right?

David Furst: Right.

Russell Berman: It hasn't voted Republican for president in nearly four decades. It hasn't elected a Republican senator since the Nixon administration, but it's been moving to the right in the past few years. Now it has elected Republican governors, most recently Chris Christie.

David Furst: It tends to flip back and forth between Democratic and Republican governors.

Russell Berman: It does tend to flip back and forth, but on the federal level and on the state level, it has been moving right. The governor's race four years ago, when Phil Murphy was running for a second term, was surprisingly close. Polls had him winning fairly comfortably. Then the result was around three points that he won by.

David Furst: Against Jack Ciattarelli.

Russell Berman: Against Jack Ciattarelli. Then Donald Trump came within six points of winning last year. Now we have Jack Ciattarelli, who's running again. He got a boost of momentum from coming-- He's run now three times for governor, but because he came so close last time, that allowed him to win the primary pretty easily. He's now running with Trump's endorsement. The Democrat is Mikie Sherrill, a member of Congress since 2019. The polls have this pretty close. Sherrill is favored. I think if you talk to people in both parties, they would say that she has the edge.

We've seen a couple of polls that have the race either tied or within the margin of error. We have other polls where she's up. In the context of everything that we've been talking about, this is seen as a must-win for Democrats, as sort of, what Sherrill told me, would be a shot across the bow in this new Trump administration to show they've been doing in smaller special elections this year. This would be the biggest test so far. We also have a governor's race in Virginia, but the polls have the Democrat doing a bit better there, and that's been a flip. Usually, Virginia is the state that everybody is watching because it's been more of a swing state more recently. Now, New Jersey is really the one that everybody is paying attention to.

David Furst: Right, and based on the fact that New Jersey and Virginia are the only states that have governor races in this off-year election,-

Russell Berman: That's right.

David Furst: -that means these races always get a lot of attention as pundits try to get a sense for the mood of the nation and what's coming in next year's midterm elections. You calling New Jersey the blue state that's now a bellwether, that's a little more than meaning that the results of this election might be picked through and analyzed for clues. Right? You're saying it's something much more than that.

Russell Berman: Right. It is getting closer to that point where you might call it a swing state. The election this year is seen as, at least regionally, if not nationally, it's being fought on the same issues, costs, and prices, but also on talking about what the Trump administration is doing and how voters are reacting to that. It's being fought on the issues that we expect the midterms to be fought on next year. In Virginia, it's not quite the same because Virginia is going to be very impacted by the cuts to the federal workforce in a way that New Jersey is not.

It's seen as a little bit more reflective of, again, the region and potentially the nation at large. This will also give us a sense about whether is New Jersey just been moving a little bit further rightward and now it's going to bounce back to where it's been historically, or is it going to continue? Then, by 2028, we really are talking about it as potentially a swing state.

David Furst: It's also fascinating that there have been these competing trends in New Jersey. One, the state tends to pick the opposite party after eight years of either a Republican or a Democrat as governor, and the state tends to pick the opposite party in the year after a presidential election. They can't both happen this time.

Russell Berman: That's right, and so you're seeing these distinct strategies. Mikie Sherrill is trying to make this race case distinctly about Trump, the effects of the Trump administration on New Jersey, whether it's the tariffs and costs to electricity and energy prices, or whether, in this case, it's the government shutdown. She was jumping right on the announcement that the administration would be withholding this $18 billion for the Gateway Tunnel project and the Second Avenue Subway, but the Gateway Tunnel project, that impacts New Jersey just as much as New York.

Then Ciattarelli, the Republican, has been trying to make this race about the Democrats who have power in Trenton. Phil Murphy is not as unpopular as Trump, although he's pretty close, depending on the poll that you see. He's saying, "If you are unhappy and you want change, change from the Democratic Party that's been running this state and elect a Republican." Whereas Mikie Sherrill is saying, "If you want change, this is your first chance to regret maybe your vote for Donald Trump and the Republicans federally last year."

David Furst: Russell, let's talk about this recent news surrounding the improper release of Mikie Sherrill's Navy service records. These are records that were used by her opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, that show that she was barred from walking in her Naval Academy graduation in 1994 after failing to turn in classmates that were caught cheating on an exam. This release also contained her Social Security Number, her home address, her parents' address. The National Archives say that the records were released in error when they were obtained by the Ciattarelli campaign. They sent a letter to Sherrill apologizing for the error. House Democrats say that the National Archives inspector general is investigating the release of those records. Talk a little bit about that. What are voters making of all of this? How does this story impact the race?

Russell Berman: Ciattarelli wants this to be about the content of those records and basically dinging Mikie Sherrill, which her strength politically is her record as a Navy helicopter pilot. Now Ciattarelli is hoping that voters see, oh, she was punished. She was connected to this cheating scandal. She wasn't allowed to walk in her commencement. Now, of course, other people are saying Sherrill was punished because she wouldn't rat out her friends. Maybe voters might understand that, especially in New Jersey. Sherrill pounced on this right away to make this story about the retribution and the punishment of political foes and the politicization and the weaponization of the Trump administration, which goes with her broader message, which we just talked about, of trying to make this race about Trump.

What we saw, interestingly, was she got all of her colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus to jump on this as well, and she's running ads on this. What voters are hearing about is not so much the content of these records and whether she has a blemish on her military record. They're hearing about how Trump, once again, is weaponizing the federal government to go after a political opponent. Now, we don't even know if that's exactly what happened here. The National Archives is investigating. They did apologize to Mikie Sherrill, which is noteworthy in itself because we have not seen anybody connected to the Trump administration really apologize to a Democrat all year. Right? That is noteworthy.

David Furst: Not a lot of apology. Right.

Russell Berman: No, of course. Is it possible that this was just an innocuous error by a technician? Maybe it was related not to politics, but to the staffing at the National Archives related to DOGE cuts and all of that. We don't really know the answer, but the way that it's being played in New Jersey is very clear, which is Mikie Sherrill sensed an opportunity to take a potential negative story and make it part of her campaign message about this is how we need to fight back against Trump. He is overreaching and doing all kinds of morally wrong things.

David Furst: Russell, we've been also talking about the shutdown, the current federal shutdown. Do you think that's going to have an impact? Could that impact the governor's race in New Jersey?

Russell Berman: It could. It's interesting. You would think it certainly would affect the governor's race in Virginia, which is right around the center of the federal government there. In New Jersey, it is partially because of the way that Trump has responded. To punish, as we talked about earlier in this hour, they announced that they're holding back or canceling, we don't know, this $18 billion for the Second Avenue Subway and the Gateway Tunnel project. That was an opportunity for Sherrill once again to hit Trump and then hit Ciattarelli for, again, weaponizing the federal government against New Jersey.

It was Ciattarelli who's being put on the defensive, and reporters are asking him, does he support the shutdown? Does he support the withholding of these funds? Is he going to stand up to the president who endorsed him? He didn't have a great answer for all of this. I think the conventional wisdom is that if it's going to help anyone right now, it's going to help Mikie Sherrill. As we talked about, that's potentially important because this is a pretty close race.

David Furst: The second debate between Jack Ciattarelli and Mikie Sherrill is scheduled for Wednesday, October 8th, at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center from 7:00 to 8:00 PM. Looking ahead, the voter registration deadline, October 14th. In-person early voting starts later this month. That's on Saturday, October 25th. Election Day is November 4th, so, filling out the calendar for you right now. Russell Berman, staff writer at The Atlantic. His latest pieces have been focused on the federal government shutdown and the New Jersey governor's race. Russell, thanks so much for joining us.

Russell Berman: Thank you. It's great to be here.

 

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