Brian Fitzherbert, who you, hear every Friday at
11AM
with Ann Baker. Fitzherbert, Friday.
He was on with Ann today with Paul,
Conatra,
excuse me, on the pronunciation,
and,
assemblyman Paul Kanatra. This Monday, there's a big
rally up in Trenton.
And, on top of the big rally that's
coming up in Trenton on Monday
and there's a lot of great participants in
this, folks, and it's all about getting back
New Jersey, getting it back, getting the, fiscal
house house in order.
Paul Kinatra
has a video online that's gone viral
where he's addressing the assembly and basically,
calling everybody to task on what they've done
to the state. So having said that and,
of course, he was on with, with, Anne
Baker
earlier today as well. But the issue too
important, glad to have them both back with
me
on the program. Paul, for the first time,
Brian, of course, has been with me before.
Gentlemen, thanks so much for taking time out
of your day to join us again
on this program. Paul, thanks to you for
joining us for the first time. Appreciate it.
What's going on, Dan? Great to be here.
Yeah. It's good to have you both. And
we have in the studio also Keith Hartsell,
who's my regular Friday cohost, and he's in
addition to being my regular Friday cohost. He's
an Ocean City councilman
as well, and so he'll he's in a
studio too. So let's you know, time is
of the essence.
We have plenty of time in this first
hour,
but I wanna get right to the crux.
Be before we get to the rally
on Monday,
Paul, talk a little bit about the temperament
of the New Jersey assembly. You cut a
video,
might have been even last week. I don't
know. Wednesday or Thursday.
You're sitting at the dais, I believe, and
you're addressing the assembly, and you're talking about
a variety of topics, immigration being one of
them.
Talk to this audience about what you were
sharing with the assembly on that day, if
you don't mind.
Yeah. Yeah. And and that's just the, the
most recent,
time that, I was cut off and prevented
from asking questions and and saying
important information.
You know, our our assembly
is,
extreme to say the least. You know, out
of 80 seats now,
Republicans only hold 23 of them. And as
a result,
I think they feel like they're kings in
the state house.
And, you know, they expect things to go
a certain way. They haven't lost a vote
on the floor of the assembly
in twenty years, and I think they're also
used to Republicans being somewhat quiet. We have
a couple people,
in our caucus, especially freshman members that have
been speaking up more and more. I don't
think the Democrats really know how to handle,
what's been growing in terms of the fight
that's been coming from us
despite our shrinking numbers,
and it really has reached the boiling point
over the last couple months. At the end
of the last session
in January,
the night before,
we went out and the new session of
the legislature was sworn in, the speaker of
the assembly,
threatened to shut my mic off and cut
me off because I brought out a poster,
showing all the,
the crimes committed by, illegal aliens in the
state, and I was talking about the cost
of illegal immigration in the state. The governor
pocket vetoed,
two of those bills,
and then we got right back into it
with the new governor and the new session
of the legislature
last week. And what you saw in that
video
was in the public safety, public preparedness committee,
where they were bringing two of the bills
plus a bill to make it illegal for,
federal law enforcement to wear any kind of
masks even if they're in danger.
It's incredible. And, and the chairman didn't like
the answers that, I was getting,
didn't like,
the fact that we were fighting. So he,
stopped me from asking any more questions
and, and cut my mic off.
When when you're you know, you are in
there, and, Brian, I'm I'm gonna come to
you for an opening comment as well. But
I just real quick, I wanna ask this.
You know the temperament that's in there in
the legislature, the 80 seats. You got 57
Democrats.
How do they defend
when you bring up this list
and you show them the facts? This is
what's going on, murders, rapes. They don't.
They don't. They don't they don't defend it.
There there is no there is no true
debate in that state house. I'll give you
a perfect example. Anytime
an extreme bill comes up and Republicans go
to fight it on the floor of the
assembly, we ask the question,
will the sponsor of the bill yield for
a question?
I've been there for two years. Nobody's yielded
for a question on anything meaningful. They won't
even take questions. Well, I thought the whole
when you turn Yeah. Not to cut you
off, Paul, but I thought the whole purpose
of the assembly on these bills is to
debate the bills back and forth.
That that's what our founding fathers want. That's
not what today's 2,026
Democrats want. They don't have answers to the
question. So when you don't have answers to
the questions, and we'll get into the cost
and the extremism of it all in in
a little bit. But when you don't have
answers, they don't want anything to be asked
because they can't justify their action.
I'll tell you what. I I hear an
ad right there. When you don't have answers
to the questions, basically, you just run a
rough shot over everybody
and shut them down so they can't ask
any questions.
Brian Fitzherbert, thanks for taking time out of
your day. Double duty today on with Anne,
both of you, really. On with Anne earlier
today and back with us today. Brian, good
to have you back. Your comments on some
of the things you've heard so far?
Now, look, Assemblyman Knoecher has been leading this
from, the minute he got into the legislature.
His office wrote an entire,
report about illegal immigration. The fact that there
are 900,000
illegal aliens in the state of New Jersey
costing
taxpayers
roughly 7 to $8,000,000,000,
nearly 10%
of the annual budget,
in which amounts to about $1,600
per taxpayer. This is ridiculous. And to his
point and your point, the Democrats, all they
do is they got a super majority. They
have a super majority in the assembly. They've
got the governor eventually. They got a super
majority in the senate, and all they have
to do is count. And you tell a
lie enough times, people start to believe it.
The same thing is a lie of omission.
By not even acknowledging it or having the
debate that's necessary, it puts them on their
heels. So instead of having a debate, they
cut off the microphone of assemblyman Kanitra. So
this is this is just getting to a
point of, absurdity.
And, obviously, our new governor is too stupid
to realize the supremacy clause that you cannot
regulate
federal law when it comes to The United
States and the constitution. So she should go
back to school and probably read up on
the constitution. And so that'll come to an
head, and, of course,
the the state has to acquiesce to the
federal
government on that issue at some point or
at least you would think so. Of course,
we have the Supreme Court coming down today
against
the Trump tariffs. But to everybody out there
real quick who thinks it's all done, it's
not done.
Noted constitutional attorney Jonathan Turley has said, and
Trump president Trump himself has reiterated today as
well. He has other tools in his toolbox
to keep those tariffs in place. So they're
not going they're not not going away
anytime soon. Alright, gentlemen. Let's get back to
the issue of the day. It sounds doom
and gloomy, and, Keith, you're welcome to jump
in on anything as well. It sounds doom
and gloomy.
It's fifty seven twenty three in the assembly.
I think the senate,
is, the the republic 15. Twenty five fifteen.
So the mountain is high. Alright?
You know, and we gotta deal with today.
Obviously, we gotta deal with what we gotta
deal with today. And then at the same
time, we're dealing with what we gotta deal
with it. We gotta plan for the future
and try and change the trajectory.
Paul, what do you think
is the plan? And I I mean, even
a thumbnail you know, I know there's no
plan plan on paper, bullet pointed list of
things that gotta be done, probably should be.
But in your estimation,
what do you think is the immediate need,
and what do you think has to be
done long term to change?
Because as far as I'm concerned, if you
start telling the people in New Jersey what
you just told this audience,
most people are gonna say, hey. Hold on
there, Baba Louie. That's not what we voted
for,
and they would probably change
their vote or at least a lot of
them would. So what do you think? What's
the immediate need, and what's the,
medium, intermediate need and long term need in
terms of changing,
the tenor of the state and getting it
right?
It's a it's a great question. And the
reality is
your listeners that are listening to talk radio
are informed about the nuances
of politics and what's going on in our
government
aren't really the ones that need to have
anything changed. Right? They're already getting their information.
They already want to to get the information,
and they're forming their own opinions accordingly.
But we've got a whole state of people
out there who are either jaded because they're
so upset at how bad things have gotten
and they feel that there's no hope, or
they're just working
twelve, fourteen hours a day to put food
on the table and they don't have time
to think about politics until they're in the
voting booth. Right? And that's a big barrier
to entry to us, especially when the mainstream
media is genuinely against us. Yes. All the
headlines to every story that you consume on
the periphery
are slanted with a certain agenda built in.
The the reality is
our messaging
as a party
and just for sane normal people
needs to become more clear and concise, and
it needs to be delivered
in a more dynamic fashion.
Most people get their news by scrolling through
on their phone. Yeah. And if you don't
grab their attention
in the first six seconds, they're scrolling right
by you. And that's why we lost
despite the energy crisis. Who would have thought
that we had a state that during the
election,
people's energy bills were going up on average
$70,
a $100 a
month. And in the exit polling, they didn't
know who the hell to blame even though
Republicans haven't been in power for twenty years.
Right? I mean, that alone shows the disconnect.
I you know, we we can't have the
same old stodgy candidate
that don't excite anybody, can't convey any points,
and don't bring any energy to the table
because they're the real messengers out there. You
know, we're lucky that we got energetic radio
hosts like yourself and some of these online
influencers,
but we all have to do our part
because they only keep winning
because people don't know what's going on, how
bad it really is, and how much of
it is their fault. Well, you know, and
I'm listening to you. As I'm listening to
you, I'm writing down because you're right. People
scroll through the headlines on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok,
wherever they're at. And the thing is, did
you just run one ad that said, did
you know that legal immigration costs you, you,
you, and I would I would spell that
out, you, you,
you, $1,600
out of your pocket.
I mean, these are the things you've gotta
be aggressive. I actually mentioned that as a
result of the Cittarelli campaign, thought the messaging
was off, thought they missed some opportunities
with reaching out to you, and I put
it at the feet of the state GOP
at that time.
So there's a lot of work to be
done. Brian, there's a big,
gathering on Monday at the State House.
I heard, on Anne's program, you guys were
talking about it. TPUSA
is gonna be there, representatives, I should say,
other groups as well. Talk a little bit
about this event that's happening Monday.
Yeah. So on top of that, moms for
liberty and other other like minded individuals and,
you know, Assemblyman Connecture is organizing this. There's
already been close to over 5,000 signatures that
have signed the petition, and I'll I'll alley
oop it back to him for more of
the details. But it's Monday at Trenton
in the annex or out by the annex.
Assemblyman Knicker, give the rest of the And
and the assembly in connector also heard there
are now three bills in front that the
assembly is gonna be the assembly is gonna
be considering on Monday as well
related to immigration. Am I correct? Did I
hear correctly?
That's what we're anticipating.
Right now, I believe, and I haven't checked
this morning,
there is the ICE bill that, makes it
illegal for federal agents to wear any masks.
They passed the other two bills, one which
codifies the attorney general's,
sanctuary status directive and the other that prohibits,
law enforcement from sharing any information with federal
authorities.
Those were passed out of committee. We anticipate
they're gonna be brought up,
and be placed on the, the schedule for
Monday as well. So what we're we're really
hoping with this rally
is that we make a big stink, make
a big noise,
and show everybody that we're here to fight.
And if all three of those bills are
up, then everybody can walk into the gallery
in the State House and be warm after
the rally and see for themselves how the
sausage is made. If they only pass, try
and pass one or two of them. At
least we'll make some big noise for when
they may come up in a couple weeks
or even a couple months depending on all
of it. But my hope is that with
this rally, with the publicity that's been getting,
that maybe the speaker decides to pull one
or two of those bills, and we only
have one or two,
on the actual schedule. But we've got, a
great lineup like Brian said. We've got a
representative from Turning Point, got a representative from
Moms for Liberty. We have an angel mom
who lost her,
lost her daughter,
lost her son as a result of of
the immigration crisis. We have a bunch of
assembly members, a senator.
You know, it's, it's gonna be a good
turnout, I think, even though it's gonna be
30 degrees and in the snow.
And, one way or another, we're putting our
money where our mouth is. You know, I
would like to I would like to see
up there you know, obviously, we have our
media in New Jersey as you pointed out,
Paul, and as Brian knows as well.
A lot of people listening to the media
here skewed towards the, other side of the
aisle. And in fact, they they are seem
to be against.
It's really incredible if you think about it.
They are against the fundamentals
of America, which is really quite the head
scratcher for, for the press.
But
I I really we need somebody, and I'm
not gonna be there on Monday, but I'll
I'll be there in spirit.
But I we need one of the,
outside,
media companies, Save NJ. We need one of
those reporters to put that mic in in
the speaker's face
and ask that question. We gotta get it
on video.
Why are you why do you wanna impose
these criminals upon your own people? Can you
answer that question? What are you doing to
make New Jersey more affordable?
You know what I mean? Somebody needs to
get this stuff on videos. With them. Yeah.
Yeah. Go ahead.
In the in the state house, there's no
investigative journalism anymore. It's all softball questions.
Everything edited,
to to get them the answers that they
want. It's it's it's very sad, to be
honest. Nobody gets pressed on their side. And
that's why we're in the fix we're in,
quite frankly, because the media is not doing
their job.
Mister Hartley, you've been listening. Any comments or
anything you, have heard thus far? I I
don't know. It just seems tired of me.
I'm just sitting here thinking. I I just
this is such a uphill climb. I don't
I don't mean to be negative, but there's
just such a a a vast amount that
people are gonna have to get past, and
I just don't know what the answer is
at all. I mean, I you know, these
are we're chipping away at it, but,
my God, I mean, this is common sense,
and the people can't see the common sense,
and the problem the problem is we can't
seem to get They can't see it, and
they don't care. One way to go. One
way. A simple message, Adi. I think you're
right. You put the mic in front of
a, you know, the speaker's face and try
to get him to answer it, but
this is just gonna be a long, hard
See, my my thought is to embar the
only way to do this now is to
embarrass them into
changing because they're not gonna change. They're shaming
them into changing somehow, some way. I don't
know. I can't think of any other way
to get to get it to happen quickly.
The only other thing to do is just
move to Cape May County. We're good here.
Oh, boy. Oh, boy. No. I'm I'm just
saying. It's a it's a shame. I hear
what you're saying, but here, I'm born and
raised in New Jersey. People say people are
moving. They're migrating.
I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying in the
fight. I mean, I'm just saying. I mean,
the problem is
I don't know county by county, we've
Yeah. Keith Hart's favorite tune here on the
five time radio program. Good to be with
you, folks. We've got the assemblyman Paul Kanytra.
Excuse me, folks. I've been mispronouncing
his name.
Good thing I'm a radio host, and I
do this for a living.
But good to have him with us and
Brian Fitzherbert as well.
Brian, of course, you can hear regularly every
Friday in the 11AM
hour with Anne Baker
for Fitsubord Friday. And, of course, he was
on today, and Paul was assemblyman.
Knetra was with them as well. There's an
event happening on Monday. Assemblyman Knetra, tell us,
and apologies on the, name, by the way,
the pronunciation of your name.
Did both you gentlemen, the governor, new governor,
Mikey Sherrill, has, acknowledged,
this, budget deficit. She wants she needs no
more money. Can you believe it? They want
more money.
She has,
intimated
possibly rating the Stay NJ program, which provides
up to $6,000
credits
for six seniors 65 and older to offset
property taxes.
She's thinking about rating that to to,
offset budget budget shortfalls.
There's other gimmicks in play
as well.
Are are you getting any sense, Assemblyman Kanat
Kanitra and, and Brian, what what you're hearing?
Are they ever are they actually gonna tackle
affordability, or was that all
talking points for a campaign?
And now get ready, New Jersey, hang on
to your wallet
because the big amble of taxation is coming.
You know how they handle affordability. Right? They
handle affordability
by using taxpayer
dollars
to give out,
you know, more breaks to to low income
individuals who they created a tough situation for.
They do it with utility costs.
They're doing a pilot project now in Camden
County where they're just randomly handing out, like,
$200
a pop to people,
they they're they're they're doing it everywhere.
And the stay and day program is a
total joke.
It was just a pandering
program that they never had the funds for.
We're imagining that Republican was gonna win the
gubernatorial
race and was gonna get stuck having to
break the news to seniors that they don't
have the money. So I don't even know
what she's going to raid in that because
it's not fully funded, and they don't have
the money to deliver it anyway.
I I no. There's the the way that
we're spending money, our our you know, our
budget has gone up over 70%
since Chris Christie left office.
I mean, 70%
since Chris Christie left office. So whether your
listeners like Chris Christie or not, his budget,
was significantly
less than what we have now. They're addicted
to spending, and I don't see any end
to that no matter how the cutesy they
play games and say that they're giving people
breaks.
Brian, what you any comments on anything we've
talked about thus far, of course? And then,
also,
what about the Republican state GOP?
Shouldn't they be leading the charge?
They seem to be
absent
where you have all this low hanging fruit
of issues,
pick one,
and they don't seem to be anywhere.
I know that's not your bailiwick,
Brian, but your comments on what we've been
talking about thus far, and then I'll switch
back to the assemblyman for his take on
the and, of course, you're welcome to comment
on that as well, the Republican state GOP.
But where the heck are they?
Yeah. Yeah. So two things here. You know,
this is one of the things that drives
me nuts because I work in corporate America.
I work on budgets and guess what? You
have shareholders, you have stakeholders, you have internal
external customers that you have to support etcetera.
And you can't do these budget gimmicks because
most publicly traded companies are heavily regulated to
rent this. And you would think government's the
same way. Two things. You touched upon this,
and the assemblyman signature touched upon this from
an energy standpoint. New Jersey, not too long
ago, was a net exporter of energy. And
then guess what? The democrats
closed six power plants, and now we've become
a net importer costing us more money. And,
yes, by the way, getting it from coal
and other places in West Virginia. That's piece
number one. Piece number two, from an economic
standpoint, again, the assemblyman's
report on illegal immigration
is the first place that any executive
in in Trenton should start by saying, wow,
7 to $8,000,000,000 that we're spending on non
citizens and criminal foreign nationals that broke our
laws and illegal immigrants that are here. That's
probably a good place to start for $8,000,000,000
to try to figure this out. Ask everyone
listening, why is rent and housing so expensive?
Blame illegal immigration. Too much demand. Why is
school and local taxes so expensive? Because illegal
immigrants that have children that go in these
schools that do not speak English, that are
forced to hire teachers
that are English as a second language, adding
more to the budget. Blame illegal immigration. Why
is health care and health insurance so expensive?
Because illegal immigrants
use
urgent care and hospitals as primary care. Every
issue from an economic standpoint, you can tie
back to the root cause of illegal immigration.
And, again, $8,000,000,000
a year a year. The democrats have been
in control of Trenton
with the exception of the eight years of
Chris Christie for the last quarter century.
They own the affordability
crisis, their policies, their decisions, their problems. And
to your second point, where is the New
Jersey GOP?
Again, it's very basic. Where is the messaging?
What do Republicans stand for? And how is
that communicated? And that's not happening. And it's
not happening. And, you know, you talked about
the numbers. You know, a lot of people,
when you start rattling off the numbers that
you talked about, rent is high because of
illegal immigration.
Jobs are scarce because of illegal immigration.
People think you're coming down personally on the
people who are illegal immigrants, and that may
or may not be. I don't think that's
the case. It's simply mathematics.
If you have 10 to 15,000,000
people that come into a country, the housing
stock
is stagnant. Right? So it's what it is.
So if there are 15,000,000
new people come into the country, naturally, that's
going to absorb
the housing stock, whether it's rents, buying, what
have you, and you're eliminating that inventory from
the marketplace, which is gonna drive up the
cost. It has to happen. It's simple math.
Correct?
100%. It's just math, and we cannot afford
everything. The federal government cannot afford everything. The
federal government's $40,000,000,000,000
in debt. New Jersey
is like Assemblyman Kenninger said. We almost have
a $60,000,000,000
state budget.
That is unbelievably absurd given the amount of
people that are here. We have to get
things under control. And, of course, we have
these unfortunate automatic things in place because we
have a constitutional amendment that says the balance
the budget has to be balanced. So what
happens? You have automatic gas tax increases or
other gimmicks to meet the budget. Just stop
spending.
Stop spending on noncitizens
and people who are not lawful to be
here. American citizens first, New Jerseyans first, not
non citizens. And that's unfortunately the problem because,
again,
many people will sympathize, but you have to
follow the law. We are a nation of
laws, not a nation of men and women,
and the emotions at any given time Well
who's in the Governor's Mansion. Mansion. I got
news for you. I I think emotions give
way to money any day of the week.
And when you start telling the average New
Jersey, hey. Illegal immigration is costing you you
$1,600
out of your pocket,
I think you start getting people's attention.
See, the other point I wanted to make,
if you wanna make change,
what we did is we started at the
local level years back because what was happening
in Cape May County
is our commissioner's,
board or, at that time, freeholders' board had
people in their sixties and seventies. Nothing wrong
with that, but we had no bench moving
forward.
So in Ocean City,
we had a lot of older people on
our council. We started getting younger people like
Antoine McClellan, Bobby Barr.
These were all on purpose. These were talented
people that we looked at and got them
involved. We went to Bobby Barr. We went
to Antoine McClellan and said, you need to
get involved. But Bobby would have any with
Jeff, but obviously, we went to him sooner
than later
and said you guys have to run for
office. You have to run for city council.
That creates a bench, and it seemed in
other places in the county, I had nothing
to do with it. Other towns were doing
it. So now we have this feeder system
where we have younger people in the commission
spots, younger people in the assembly spots, and
younger people in the state senate spots,
not necessarily career politicians because they've they've got
movement. They can move. Testa is is good
enough to move into something else. And so
Simonson and McClellan, where they move to, I
don't know. But if we do this locally,
start with your city council and your school
boards, get the right people in.
It's a little easier for us because we're
nonpartisan,
but the nice thing about a local city
council is it's not as divisive on social
issues and some of the dumb crap that's
that separates us. It's more how you run
a budget and run a town. And those
are the types of people that were moving
up in Cape May County. And just through
doing it, it took a long time. It
took twenty years, folks. I'm just saying it's
Yeah. It's a good place to start. Yeah.
Listen. And, also,
of those 57 Democrat assembly people and 25
senators who are Democrats,
Assemblyman, Connecticut, you probably know this, so I'll
ask you. How how many of those are
on the,
elder side? Like, how many of those it
looks like they're getting ready to, maybe Are
there any opportunities maybe to challenge some of
those seats in the future that you can
tell from right now?
Well, first of all, I wanna give the
councilman some major kudos. I started off as
a councilman, then I was mayor of Point
Pleasant Beach, and then I moved to the
assembly.
And I had to scratch and claw and
fight every step of the way. I never
was the anointed candidate.
Nobody ever chose me. You know, I had
to run against my own sitting Republican mayor
because I didn't like the way that he
was running the town and things were going
in the wrong direction. I didn't win the
screening committee nod. I was the first person
to come off of the county floor in
Ocean County at a convention in, like, twenty
some years. And what he said
really hits home for me because
it it underscores
why we don't have enough young candidates because
you get a lot of the nepotism
and a lot of the waiting in line
Right. That people have to do. And just
because
they don't have something to offer or aren't
owed a favor or owe somebody a favor,
they don't get moved up. And, you know,
New Jersey is very unique in that. And,
you know, the loss of the county line,
should expedite
that process a little bit more. You're seeing,
especially on the Democrat side, you're seeing a
gazillion people enter every single race, which I
think is healthy and good because then the
cream will rise to the top. I guess
on their side, the more extreme
crazy clotted cream will rise to the top.
But it's but something still rising to the
top.
And, yeah, look, disproportionately
in New Jersey, I go I go to
state legislator,
conferences across the country. I'm I was selected
emerging leader for GOPAC. I'm the class president.
I'm the New Jersey state chair for ALEC.
I was selected to the state legislative leadership
foundation. I go to these events, and it's
all
younger,
elected officials. I'm the old man at 46
when I go to the these other events,
and I come back here to Jersey.
And I'm like the young whippersnapper
that people are like, how is how is
he so young? You know? So so we
do have a lot of people in a
lot of positions
that are older,
and have been in there for a little
bit too long. Some of whom still have
a ton of energy and and are doing
a good job, but others who fall into
the
stereotypical
just not really doing much and taking up
a seat trap. And, hopefully, they you know,
they'll get they'll get moved on and moved
out. And, real quick, I gotta ask this.
So we got a break coming up, gentlemen.
So if you guys, if you wanna hang
with us, you can. But if, if it's
time to go, you want you know, I
wanna thank you for stopping by the ClineTime
radio show. But here's what I wanna ask
you. Of the Republicans that we have there,
the 15 in the senate,
the 23
in the assembly,
aside from mister, Assemblyman Kenitra,
within those groups, we have some that aren't
necessarily
Republican. That's also a problem for are you
alone, Assemblyman Kenitra? Are there why why aren't
there,
why aren't the other 23
assembly Republicans
joining you? Why you know? You know what
I mean? Why, you know, it might be
a minority, but if it's a minority where
everybody's on board, it has a little more
punch than just one guy.
Look. I have to be honest. It is
not just one person.
People are starting to stand up and speak.
And I I you know, if you go
back a couple years ago, the stereotype was
that it was assemblyman Brian Bergen standing up
and, you know, speaking up against a lot
of things and and not a ton of
other people standing around him.
I've seen a huge shift since I came
in,
two years ago. Now look. Everybody has different
districts.
My district is as red as any in
Alabama or Mississippi, and I represent it the
way that I think it should be as
conservative
as I am.
But other people have different districts, and they
have different passions, and they have different issue
arenas. And that's fine
as long as they're loudly proclaiming what's important
and they're standing up on the fiscal issues.
And I think we're seeing a lot of
that. I I mean, I know you guys
are in in opposite hemispheres
from, you know, Sussex and Morris County, but,
you know, if you're not following Dawn Fantasia,
you're missing out. She is
a a total spitfire.
She represents Republican women so strongly. Good.
You have no idea,
into assemblyman. Mike and Ganemort is doing a
great job.
Greg Meyer, you know, from Southern Ocean County
is doing a great job. My running mate,
Greg McGuckin,
you've you've got, you you you Alex Sawicki
in Jackson. You you you have a lot
of people who are standing up,
and and,
it it is
slowly building
on itself. I I wanna give your viewers
a little bit of hope that it is
it is slowly building on itself. Well, I
wanted I think in in in in in
a almost,
inverted way, though, we keep expecting I thought
it would happen this past election cycle when
people would be so fed up that they
would have enough.
And Ciattarelli, you know, maybe that's what his
mistake was, thinking that that would be the
case, and he only lost by a little
bit the first last election cycle, and he'd
be coasting in this time around.
We do know at some point
the threshold is gonna be hit where people
have had enough.
I think I thought we were there this
last election cycle. Obviously, we weren't.
But at some point, it will become untenable
for the average citizen even if they're Democrat.
Do you see any Democrats,
Assemblyman Kenetra,
that are starting to wave are are starting
to get religion
as to the affordability problem in the state?
I'd I'd say it's the opposite. I know
five or six Democrats
that probably voted for president Trump.
But when the rubber meets the road,
they vote the way that their Democrat leadership
wants them to Wow. Almost every single time.
Sometimes,
they seem to, quote, unquote, forget to hit
their button or they don't vote on something.
But at the end of the day, they
do seem more concerned with keeping their seat
than doing what's right. For me, I already
get to tell my grandkids when I'm 90
years old that I was in the state
legislature. I don't think they're gonna think I'm
any cooler if I did it for 20
terms versus two terms.
You know, I just wanna look myself in
the mirror at the end of the day,
and now I stood up for what was
right.
Boy, that's, we only had a a whole
lot more of you in there. We'd be
out of this mess. Brian Fitzherbert,
you've been patient, you know, listening to everybody,
Brian. And we're, you know, coming up. We've
got a few minutes left. Your comments on
anything we've been talking about, Brian, as well
as
going forward. What do you think about going
forward?
Look. Nothing ever happens overnight, and sometimes things
take a while. And sometimes there has to
be,
a cleansing as it were and sometimes you
gotta fall on your face. There's gotta be
process to filter
and get people motivated and interested in to
send me to Mitra's point. It's really hard
to get people
involved in the political process because it's so
vicious.
It's so backstabbed even from quote unquote your
own side or your allies, etcetera, because you
don't really have friends in politics. Right? You
have temporary allies
that it could be weeks, it could be
months, it could be years, it could be
decades, and it only aligns as long as
those priorities do. And to get people involved
when they have a professional life, a family
life,
and the the nastiness that comes
because it's power, you know, the the sphere
of influence that people have is they don't
wanna give up. There's very few
people like assemble I'm like, Brian. I'm interrupting
you right now to say that you and
I are friends. We're real friends. Go to
my wedding.
Yeah. Brian, you didn't hear him about a
supplement. Kaninja said he's interrupting you right now
to remind you that you and him are
friends. You came to his wedding.
He wanted to point that. Gentlemen end of
my wedding. And, gentlemen, I wanna thank you
both for join I wanna thank you both
for joining us here on the program today.
I can't wait to have you back.
Hopefully, the next time we get together, the
news will be better. Maybe those up at
the, in the state house will have gotten
religion. Maybe they'll get the message from the
people that they represent
and, you know, start doing the right thing
by the peep.