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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. WNYC's Nancy Solomon is back with us as she usually comes on the morning after her monthly "Ask Governor Murphy" call-in, which was last night on the station. Yesterday, Governor Murphy began his conversation with Nancy on the news of the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk by noting the bipartisan condemnation of political violence.

Governor Murphy: God rest his soul. So far, I'm happy to say that people are saying the right things. Let's hope we learn the right things from this and that we reject, across the board, political violence.

Brian Lehrer: The governor tied that act of political violence by sharing his vivid experience of 9/11 and being in London at that time. The governor and his wife are attending memorial services in Manhattan this morning. He then highlighted his upcoming economic mission to India. He felt it's more complicated now in light of the recent raid of immigrant workers at the Hyundai plant in Georgia. More than 300 South Koreans were arrested and are currently in the process of being deported if the administration gets their way.

Governor Murphy also talked about a recent executive order at the state level that he signed to make vaccines available to anyone age 6 months and up. He talked about how he'll work with insurance companies to make sure those are covered. Related, a new report from acting Comptroller, Kevin Walsh, on George Norcross's insurance empire. That's the very prominent New Jersey politician and businessperson George Norcross. His insurance empire is making headlines. The "scathing investigation" alleges undisclosed conflicts of interest, contract steering, and violations of public contracting laws. Quoting from Politico.

We'll also take a look at the race to replace Governor Murphy, which obviously is in the home stretch now. A new poll from Quantus Insights has Democratic candidate and representative Mikie Sherrill 10 points ahead of Republican choice Jack Ciattarelli. In what might be the most explosive moment of the race, on Saturday, Ciattarelli accused Sherrill of misleading voters by claiming he supports a sales tax on essentials like food and clothing instead of an income tax. We'll try to fact-check that with Nancy.

Also, a recent op-ed in the Bergen Record by a physician takes aim at Ciattarelli's stance on vaccination. The doctor writes, "Jack Ciattarelli's vaccine proposals would erode New Jersey children's health." We'll see what's real there. Here to break it all down as much as we can is Nancy Solomon, host of "Ask Governor Murphy". Hi, Nancy. Happy morning after.

Nancy Solomon: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want to say anything more about whatever exchange you had with the governor on the apparent assassination of Charlie Kirk?

Nancy Solomon: I don't have that much to say. It's obviously, it's not just-- It's sad anytime you see any violence happening in this country. I think political violence is particularly disturbing, and it really doesn't matter which side is attacked. It just feels destabilizing and like, "Where is this going to lead? Where is this going to go?" I thought there was an interesting moment. I was about to follow up with the governor about the fact that he and I are the same age. I was going to follow up with him to say, "Hey, when we were kids there was a lot of political violence." We grew up around it learning about it and seeing it on our TV screens in the 1960s.

Then he brought it up before I did. I thought that was interesting that, for those of us of an age, we lived through the Kennedy assassinations and Martin Luther King, and the Black Panthers, and this was on our nightly news television screens at home. It feels scary.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. In fact, later in the show, we're going to do an explicit segment on the killing of Kirk. One of our guests contributed to a Reuters report two years ago that said there's more political violence in this country now, meaning recent years, than at any time since the 1970s, citing that particular era. It also goes into-- The report goes into some differences between the kinds of political violence at that time and now. That's coming up later in the show. Let's go to some of the news on the governor's race.

You're no longer on the campaign beat, but you've been following the race. I know a recent anti-Ciattarelli ad by the Democratic Governors Association backed Super PAC claims Ciattarelli is pushing a sales tax on essential items like food and clothing. They did have a clip. Here's the whole 30-second ad. You'll hear this little clip of Ciattarelli that's in there that they build it around.

Male Speaker: 100% MAGA. That's what Donald Trump calls Jack Ciattarelli because Ciattarelli wants to be the Trump of Trenton.

Jack Ciattarelli: I support the president wholeheartedly, and my job is to help him.

Male Speaker: Ciattarelli supported Trump's Medicaid cuts targeting 300,000 in Jersey. Now he's talking about a 10% sales tax.

Jack Ciattarelli: A 10% sales tax on everything, including food and clothing.

Male Speaker: Jack Ciattarelli, 100% MAGA. 100% wrong for New Jersey.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Nancy, that's an attack ad, but it did include that sound bite of him saying a 10% sales tax on everything, including food and clothing. Is it taken out of context, or is he really for a 10% New Jersey sales tax on everything, including food and clothing?

Nancy Solomon: It's a little bit of both. No candidate ever in New Jersey is going to say that they're going to raise taxes during the campaign. That just wouldn't happen. He was talking about Tennessee and Tennessee's taxation system. That's when he seemed to suggest in this-- It was in some small group setting that he was open to looking at what Tennessee is doing. What Tennessee has done is raised its sales tax. I think one thing leads to the other.

Did he say he'd raise sales taxes? No. I think the kernel of truth in this is that you've got two candidates and two political parties nationally and statewide, really, that have very different tax policies. The Republicans are against the progressive tax system, and Democrats are for it. The progressive tax system being that you tax people more if they have more ability to pay. I think this gets at that different--

Brian Lehrer: Not just more, but at a higher percentage rate. Yes, go ahead.

Nancy Solomon: Yes. Thank you. I think it's a fair point for the Sherrill campaign to raise. I think it's an important point for them to raise. I think this is something-- a really key difference that voters should pay attention to. These attack ads, they're all-- Ciattarelli is no angel when it comes to this stuff. He says that Mikie Sherrill's clean energy plan is going to raise electric rates. It's just not true. There's no foundation to say that. Both sides can scream and yell about that there are lies being said on the campaign trail. I think for voters, you can look-- if you look carefully at the policies, you can see, we've got two candidates who are very, very different, and voters have some very clear choices to make.

Brian Lehrer: Just one follow-up on that. Is it apparent at all that Ciattarelli supports more reliance on a sales tax than on the income tax than we have now?

Nancy Solomon: I think his pointing to Tennessee is a pretty big hint. I don't think-- No. Is he going to say that publicly on the campaign trail? No. Like I said, he's not going to say, "Look, I want to raise sales taxes to offset the millionaires' tax." He's not going to say that. If you look at the Tennessee tax system, and the fact that he signaled that that's a model that he's looking at, I think there is an argument to be made that you could say he is for a less progressive tax system.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Of course, for people scratching their heads, sales taxes are not progressive in the sense that, well, if there's a 5% sales tax on everything, everybody pays the same 5%. You're not going to pay a higher percentage just because you make $30 million a year.

Nancy Solomon: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Moving on to another issue, a recent op-ed in the Bergen Record by a physician named Dr. Jennifer H. Chuang puts Ciattarelli's stance on vaccination in the spotlight. In July, Ciattarelli spoke about his stance during a Facebook Live interview with members of New Jersey Public Health Innovation PAC, as the group is called. That interview seems to have been deleted, but Politico reports he said, "I believe we now need an ombudsman, an advocate who's a member of my administration that will work in the Department of Health, and their only responsibility will be to protect parental rights."

Parental rights, Nancy, does that mean that he would want to do what they apparently are about to do in Florida, which would become the first state in the nation to eliminate all vaccine mandates for school children?

Nancy Solomon: I think that's what parental rights means in this context. Would he go as far as Florida? Impossible to say right now, but I think if you look at Jack Ciattarelli's history with-- This is his third run for governor. He has talked about parental choice. It's been a big part of his platform. It's a big part of his outreach on the campaign trail to argue that schools are teaching kids about sex when they're too young or libraries have books that kids shouldn't be reading. Moms for Liberty, the organization that is doing the book banning and fights of curriculum, is a big supporter of his.

When he invokes parental choice in the context of vaccines, I think people should listen to that. I think that's really key and really important. Here it is again. Again, it's a very big difference right now nationally, the different positions between the Republican Party, the Republican administration in Washington, the head of the Health and Human Services Department, and what Democrats stand for. I think if people care about children having to be vaccinated before they go to school, this is a big difference between the candidates.

Brian Lehrer: With our monthly visit from Nancy Solomon the morning after she hosts "Ask Governor Murphy" on the station, which she did last night. We can take a few phone calls for her on the topics that she and the governor and the callers to the governor discussed last night, as we're referencing here, if you have anything, calls or texts. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I see, Nancy, that one thing you're noticing in the campaigns is how Sherrill is reaching out to Black voters versus Ciattarelli's attempts. Do you think the two candidates are approaching different demographics differently, I guess. What can you tell us?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, I think this has been Mikie Sherrill's biggest stumble so far is that there has been concern expressed in Black communities about this is an ongoing issue that's been going on for years that Black voters often feel that the Democratic Party takes them for granted, doesn't come and solicit their votes. This has come up this year as it has in previous years, both nationally and in New Jersey. I think that she had a pretty bitter primary fight with Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, and who had a lot of Black support, and his endorsement didn't come until-- The primary was the first week of June, and he didn't endorse her till last week.

There was a troubling report in Politico about the fact that a super PAC that is supporting Mikie Sherrill hired Baraka's brother. There were questions about whether there was a shakedown to get Baraka's support. Then others have argued, "No, no, no. Look, Baraka did way better in the primary than anyone expected. Why wouldn't you go to his campaign consultants to help you get out the Black vote in the general?"

I think I don't know the answer to that question, but I think it has caused some problem for Sherrill among progressive, activist Democrats. They're a small part of the voting public, but an important part. There was another stumble that Mikie Sherrill had where at a meeting with the statewide police union, she said she would choose an attorney general who would have a better relationship with the state police. This really upset a lot of progressive activists because the current attorney general is in a fight with the state police over racial profiling. She seemed to stumble into that without understanding exactly what she was indicating when she made that statement.

I don't think for a second that she supports the idea of racial profiling. I think she just was trying to appeal to the policeman's union, and she didn't understand what that was going to mean to people when it came out, what she said. In some ways, I think-- Again, I think the theme of this conversation is there's a really stark choice here coming up in November between these two candidates. I don't really feel at this point that at least from the reporters in the press, that Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate, is being held to the same standard when it comes to reaching out to the Black community.

Brian Lehrer: You reminded us in that context yesterday of a moment on this show back in 2021 when Ciattarelli was the Republican candidate against Phil Murphy, and a listener named Paul called in. We're going to play this 40-second clip, which begins with the end of the question by the listener.

Paul: I'd be very curious to hear his definition of white privilege.

Brian Lehrer: Mr. Ciattarelli?

Jack Ciattarelli: Yes, Brian? What's the next question?

Brian Lehrer: Oh, he asked your definition of white privilege, and if you didn't hear the beginning of the call, he said he was interested in hearing you talk about your middle-class upbringing at the beginning of the segment, and with your life experience and your experience in politics, how would you define white privilege?

Jack Ciattarelli: I don't really understand the question, Brian. Either you'll have to go further explaining the basis of his question, or we can move on.

Brian Lehrer: Okay. He didn't understand the basis of the direct question. "I'd be very curious to hear his definition of white privilege," and with the listener's context that I characterized for Mr. Ciattarelli. Why did that stick with you?

Nancy Solomon: [laughs] That might be one of the most cringy moments I've ever listened to on the radio. Let's remember 2021, a very different time than we're in right now. It was not that long after George Floyd and the protests and the reckoning around white privilege and around race that much of the country was going through. It was even-- Listening to it today, I still think it's pretty cringy. I think in 2021, it was even-- felt on my ears even worse.

Ciattarelli, he does not have a good track record on his statements. It came up several times in that interview you did in 2021. He just does not have a great track record on how he would treat low-income and working-class Black communities in New Jersey. He's very pro getting rid of the school funding formula that suburban white communities are upset about because they feel it sends too much money to urban Black communities. He had no answer to you then, and I don't think he has one now about what he would do about wealth and income inequality between Black and white residents in New Jersey.

He had a page on his website for this year that was called-- I mean it might still be there, I haven't actually checked this week, but it was called "Blacks for Jack." It just seemed to be an empty shell. Like he didn't really have any key support, but was just this weird thing, "Blacks for Jack." He's not doing so good on his positions on how he would govern in a state with many Black residents.

Brian Lehrer: We mentioned earlier vaccine policy for school children and whether that should be up to the parents. Listener writes. "Was the ability to get the COVID vaccine for healthy people under 65 discussed on your 'Ask Governor Murphy' call-in last night?"

Nancy Solomon: Yes, absolutely. It actually followed a few hours after Governor Murphy signed an executive order yesterday, basically mandating COVID vaccines, or making-- Not mandating, making vaccines for COVID accessible to all New Jersey residents above the age of six months. There's a little caveat in there where, for children age 6 months to 3 years, it needs to be administered by a doctor because there's some concern that the way shots are given at pharmacies isn't quite right for very, very young children. They can go to their doctor.

Then everyone over the age of three should be able to get a vaccine wherever they've been getting their vaccines, whether you go to the pharmacy, you go to your doctor, because there was concern that you would-- basically coming out of Washington, you were going to need a prescription. There's still a big question left undecided about whether this is going to be covered by insurance companies. He said he was still working on it. I reached out to the administration this morning because it was unclear to me exactly what-- When I thought about it, I didn't really understand what that means.

I'm told that in the statutes, they're not able to mandate something like this. He's hoping that he can persuade insurance companies to continue to cover COVID vaccines. You would think it would be in their interest because it's going to be more expensive to treat people with COVID than it is to give people a vaccine.

Brian Lehrer: I guess that's one way to estimate the potential economic risk to the insurance companies. Of course, that's the big question now in New York and New Jersey, since both governors have moved to make sure that the shots are available to basically anyone who wants them, regardless of the restrictions on the official recommendations, which would have, from the federal government in the past, which did in the past from the federal government, from the CDC, assure that they were available to anyone. RFK has limited that to people over 65 and people with certain underlying conditions who are younger than 65.

The governors can help ensure the access. The big open question at this point, it seems to me, is whether insurance will cover it. One more issue from last night's "Ask Governor Murphy"-- Listeners, by the way, this is part of our New Jersey Thursday series. Just like we're covering the New York City mayoral race every Wednesday, until then, we're covering the New Jersey gubernatorial race every Thursday on the show until the election today, combined with Nancy's monthly appearance after the "Ask Governor Murphy" call-in. Last issue, an economic mission to India. Why is Governor Murphy heading to India in his last months in office?

Nancy Solomon: This has been a big focus for him, certainly in his second term, but I think really both terms that he is trying to improve the economy of the state by recruiting big companies from all over the world to come and build manufacturing plants or other kinds of businesses in the state. He's been to Canada, he's been to the UK, he's been to a few of the Gulf Arab states, and now he's going to India.

The thing that most surprised me in that conversation was-- Well, there are two things. My question for him was, "Does what's happening from the Trump administration just make this task so much harder?" How do you go to India and try to convince big successful businesses that they want to build a plant in New Jersey, when we just saw what happened to the Hyundai plant in Georgia with the raid of people working there and the deportation?

Brian Lehrer: More than 300 workers believed to be of South Korean origin in that case. Let's listen to the governor's response when you asked him about that.

Nancy Solomon: Okay.

Governor Murphy: For Indian students, there are over 2,000 that are awaiting their visas for New Jersey universities alone in this semester, which has already started. We expect that we're bringing a whole bunch of our higher ed presidents with us, again, deliberately to have that conversation. Listen, I don't control American tariff policies. I'm not a tariff guy. I think it's a mistake, particularly with an ally. I certainly don't control visa policies. I think those are the two bigger ones.

Yes, the South Korean LG Hyundai experience probably elevates that concern as well. We feel strongly, particularly given the hundreds of thousands in the Indian American diaspora in New Jersey, the jobs that have been created, we think this is absolutely the right moment to say, "You know what, things may be choppy at the national level, but they're not with Jersey. We're here for you in good times and in bad."

Brian Lehrer: Nancy, we've just got a minute left in the segment. Even as the Trump administration tries to crack down and reduce the number of immigrant workers in this country, they're encouraging, even requiring, in trade deals, investment in building plants in the United States. I don't know if he and Governor Murphy are on the same page, at least with that in mind, as Murphy goes to India.

Nancy Solomon: Yes, I think that's probably true. Phil Murphy has made a big point over and over again of saying that he wants to work with the Trump administration where they agree. Some Democrats really object to that and just feel that he hasn't been strong enough on criticizing some of the worse elements of what's happening from Washington, namely masked men without identification taking people off the streets and the conditions at the immigrant detention center, Delaney Hall in Newark, on and on.

Yes, but he does seem to want to work with the Trump administration on these things where they do agree. I was surprised to learn one thing in that conversation about his trip to India last night, which is that there are 2,000 students in India who have been accepted into New Jersey universities who are still waiting for their visas and the school year has already started, and that Governor Murphy is bringing with him some higher education university presidents to come to India with him and try to smooth over, I guess. I didn't quite understand the point of this, but to smooth over that problem and try to help these students get to New Jersey to attend school.

Brian Lehrer: On the uncertainty that you described before over whether Jack Ciattarelli, as a Republican candidate for governor, supports an increase in the sales tax. Listener writes, "Regarding the 10% tax discussed in the New Jersey governor's race, anyone who supports Trump's tariffs supports at least a 10% sales tax." Let that comment sit out there as a commentary. Nancy, thanks, as always, for coming on on the morning after your "Ask Governor Murphy" call-in.

Nancy Solomon: I am very appreciative, Brian, as a New Jersey listener, that you're doing Jersey Thursdays. I would like to respectfully suggest that you need some theme music, and that it should be Bruce Springsteen's song "State Trooper," which is on the Nebraska album.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We're going to queue it up for next Thursday. Nancy recommending a musical addition to the show. Nancy, thank you.

Nancy Solomon: It just oozes New Jersey vibe. I love that song.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

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