W o n d. Calling 96099271100.
And I am absolutely thrilled to have Assemblyman
Brian Bergen
of District 26
on air
together with of course, it's Fitzherbert Friday
with Brian Fitzherbert,
my buddy, and I
assemblyman,
welcome. How are you and Brian?
Doing fantastic. Thanks for having me. And, Nel,
it is my pleasure.
I know, we, we missed you last week,
but believe me, when we talk politics, I
understand politics.
My father was involved on the periphery, and
he could be called upon at any hour
of the day or night.
So I know how how difficult that is.
Please tell our listeners
what was,
offensive enough
for you to,
ask for
an investigation,
in the ethics committee about an assemblywoman
who
really rankled
you, who
who really
woke you up to how low you can
go.
Yeah. Well, it's so the assemblywoman is assemblywoman
Katie Brennan. She's out of, I believe, 32
32nd District.
And
she introduced a piece of legislation
that,
it it's spelled
f ICE, you know, the vulgarity
ICE,
in a in a bunch of words. So
they act they spelled out this acronym. And
so, you know, I I took offense to
it.
Look, I have no offense to, you know,
language like that. I mean,
out in public or but
in the context of legislation, it's just not
it's not something people should be doing. And,
you know, she was quick to point out
that
I, at one point, during a heated argument
on the floor, called somebody the an a
hole,
during a on a hot mic. But I
see those things a little bit as fundamentally
different things. She
put something
in a public document into legislation that was
clearly designed
to have
that acronym spelled out F ICE. I just
got a problem with that. I don't
think that's how our legislature should be used,
and I take a lot of pride in
the institution of the New Jersey state legislature,
and when someone does that that's not right,
I I think that we need to do
something about it. And so I chose to
file an ethics violation against her. Well, I'm
I'm thrilled that you did.
I think it's,
it shows the lack of class of this
woman.
Don't know how old she is, but she,
she thinks that she's clever,
when in fact she's just low class,
and I'm I'm really happy that,
you're doing it. Has it, made any progress
in the, in the assembly?
Well, it won't for a while. The the
ethics joint ethics committee hasn't even reorganized for
the year yet, so they sought to do
that. Then once they do that, then it
should get scheduled ideally for a hearing with
them. So it'll be a little bit of
a long time before something like this happens.
But the feedback time has been pretty good.
I think people are bothered by it in
general, and they understand what I've tried to
do. Ironically, a lot of a lot of
the Democrats, particularly the further left, who like
Katie Brennan for her activism,
are
are coming back at me saying, well, why
aren't you doing something about Trump or this
person or that person? And at the end
of the day, you know, I'm a member
of the New Jersey state legislature.
This is the role I have. This is
the people I deal with. You know, Trump's
not in the legislature last I checked,
so I'm worried about what happens in our
house. And she's in she's in that house,
and that's why I took the complaint from
her.
Alright. Well, you know, we can only hope
that as it travels through the assembly and
through all of the
the law people that are there,
that it shows up as something that is
not allowed anymore and that people really do
have to pay attention
to bringing class
to
politics because believe me,
Brian,
you see that all the time.
It's the lowering
of our humanity
when people throw,
these kinds of things at one another and
you look and you say,
why why is this happening?
Yeah. No. I totally agree. There's a time
and place for stuff. This is not a
time or place for that kind of behavior.
And so,
so I'm calling out on it, and we're
gonna see if we can't get some disciplinary
action against her. I mean, what's so I
think about it all the time. Well, what
happens if they say it's okay?
Well, then that opens the floodgates to people
doing this stuff all over the place and
naming bills all kinds of
terrible names. We don't want that. Not in
our not in our legislature. Our people deserve
better from our government.
Oh,
isn't that isn't that the truth? Because we've
discovered,
to our chagrin that,
politicians, by and large,
so many of them want the power and
the wealth.
They don't want the acrimony that comes when
they they throw bad things at good people,
but that's where they are.
And I don't know.
This is just one of probably many bills
that, yeah, you are,
putting out there. Is there anything else?
Because I agree with you 100%.
That shouldn't be allowed. They should they should
insist that she change the name of this
bill that she wants to see passed.
But is there is there anything else that
you are literally fighting for
to get passed in, the New Jersey legislature?
Well, I I find myself most of the
time fighting against
stuff just because I'm in the minority, and,
the the role that we have to play
typically is trying to beat the majority back
to the middle.
So
most oftentimes,
I'm playing defense, not offense down there,
because I'm not trying to get a bill
passed that's meaningless, you know, like a license
plate bill or naming the new state flower
petal or something. So,
so I focus mostly on defense. However,
I do put some proposals out there that
I would love to see become law.
The the most recent one were some budget
ideas.
And this won't
initially,
your listeners may not be on my side
when I first started talking, but hopefully by
the end, they are. So
the the the budget state budget has a
$3,000,000,000
deficit.
And what that means is that
even though we have the money because we
have a surplus,
the state is gonna spend $3,000,000,000
more than it takes in, and the surplus
allows us to do that without being in
violation of the constitution.
Had we not had a surplus, you couldn't
do that. Yeah. It has to be balanced.
So they use the surplus to balance it.
But it's a problem that will eventually bleed
the surplus dry, so we have to fix
that. It's called a structural deficit.
So I looked at two of the biggest
programs that could be
eliminated
that aren't necessary
that contribute to that deficit. And it's the
anchor program and the state New Jersey program.
Both are property tax relief programs.
And the two of them together
didn't exist five years ago, by the way.
They're brand new programs.
And
the two together cost $5,000,000,000
a year.
So if we were to eliminate those two,
we would save $5,000,000,000
That eliminates the $3,000,000,000
structural deficit and leaves 2 extra billion dollars
to do something with. Now that 2,000,000,000,
the Democrats, you know, when they find savings,
they would find another way to spend it.
But I wanna try to find a way
to reduce
the tax burden on on the taxpayer.
So I suggested the option of eliminating tolls.
And,
tolls bring in about $2,000,000,000 a year.
And so
with that savings, you could completely eliminate tolls
and still be able to take care of
the roads just the same as you as
you do today.
And one of the reasons I targeted tolls
is it's a it's a regressive
fee on people. If you have an E
ZPass and you travel down the Atlantic City
Expressway today, I think you paid $3.
If you don't, Toll By Place is now
charging you $7.
So somebody who doesn't want to sign up
for E ZPass
and give them a $100 of their money,
to hold until they use it is gonna
be paying double the price for tolls. It's
it's really not right. It's ridiculous. So I
chose that. Now
you cannot do that. It could take the
$2,000,000,000 and reduce the income tax or reduce
the sales tax or reduce anything that you
want to do. But that was a proposal
I put out in place. Now the reason
I targeted
stay in New Jersey program and the anchor
program is these tax rebate programs. They're all
a gimmick.
You know, in order for somebody to get
a thousand dollars back as an anchor check,
you've given more than a thousand dollars to
the government because he has to go up,
go through all this bureaucracy,
all just think about all the applications they
have to process, all the checks they have
to cut. There's a lot that goes into
administering these programs. And then ultimately, the people
get less back. So I'd rather not take
the money in the first place
and,
instead of taking, you know, 1,100
to give you back a thousand dollars. And
hopefully, that makes sense to everybody. I mean,
tax relief programs are popular,
and,
you know, they're not, they're not a popular
thing to go after. And I'll just I'll
explain why just for one second.
I'll give you an example of why my
opinion on this, even though I think it's
what's best for the people of New Jersey,
may not be
something that the people embrace.
And I understand that. If you look back
to JCPenney,
what they did in 2012,
prior to 2012, JCPenney was the discount store.
Everything was 50% off, 80% off. I mean,
crazy discounts. You get a coupon in the
mail for, you know, 50% off a sweater,
whatever the case may be. And in 2012,
they had a new CEO came in and
he said, you know what? This is stupid.
We're marking these things up just to fake
discount them. And so he created the everyday
low price.
Basically took the discounts
and put them permanently in place and everything
was as marked. Well they lost $928,000,000
in revenue that year even though
the prices people were going to pay were
the same
or cheaper because they didn't have to print
these coupons and go through this stuff. People
still like the discount so much
that it cost them almost,
almost $1,000,000,000 in revenue that year. So I'm
well aware
that people like these gimmicks
even
though it's less beneficial for them. But nonetheless,
I put those proposals out there anyway. Let's
see where they go. I think it's what's
best for the state of New Jersey.
You're a tough guy. You put things out
there that you already know will probably fail
because you look back at JCPenney and you
see the the,
the results
of,
wanting to actually help people, but they like
thinking they're gonna get a sale.
Brian, please stay with us. We have assemblyman
Brian Bergen, and we're going to have our
own Brian Fitzherbert on. So,
You betcha. This is Anne Baker on talking
with Anne on News Talk 1492.30.
Calling line (609)
927-1100.
I am honored to have assemblyman
Brian Bergen on the air.
When I looked at,
the committees
that, Assemblyman Bergen is on, I thought to
myself, wow. These are really heavy duty
heavy duty committees on commerce, economic development.
All we're hearing is that the, high taxes
that are being brought to us by the
Democrats
are, in fact, pushing
business out of our state. What's actually happening?
Because we don't know.
Well, can can you can you guys hear
me now? Hopefully.
Yes. Absolutely.
Well well well, thanks. Sorry about that. So
well,
I like to I I wouldn't call them
heavy duty committees, to be honest. I mean,
none of the committees in Trenton are are
that are that active in stuff that's actually
beneficial, particularly the Commerce Committee. So I'm on
the committee, but we don't do anything really
that's gonna help business. We just mostly do
annoying new rules and laws that hurt, and
that's just the truth. Who am I going
to?
The chair picks what bills are on there
and at the direction of the speaker,
and we deal with nonsense. The the truth
is in order to help business in New
Jersey, you have to you have to create
a better regulatory environment for them, and we're
not looking to do that. I mean, I
wish we were. I hope we would do
one day because
all the trying
about how much revenue we have in the
state and and how much property tax relief
we need to provide, all would be solved
if we unlock the business potential of New
Jersey. Because then businesses will be here and
they will contribute
enough to our revenue,
to allow us to reduce the tax burden
in other places.
So the short the long and short answer
to your question, I guess, is the Commerce
Committee isn't doing anything of value. I wish
it was, but I do go sit there
and listen to the nonsense that gets proposed.
Well, you're also on the committee on labor,
and I I would assume that that has
to do with unions and the cost of
unions. Does that have anything to do with
the businesses leaving,
the state of New Jersey?
No. I don't I don't think that the
cost of labor in New Jersey has a
lot to do with businesses leaving. I think
it has a lot more to do with
the regulatory environment. I mean, you can't you
can't build anything around here without going through
so many hoops.
There are businesses that would love to build
plants in New Jersey and despite maybe the
higher labor costs here,
because there's a lot of additional value that
comes from being located in this area. So
that kinda offsets
the cost of labor. But the downside is,
you know, you can build a plant here
in, you know, seven years, and you can
build it in Texas in a year.
So
they they don't have the time to delay
for those types of things. And then once
it's built, you're subject to the environmental justice
laws,
and the title 10 permits are difficult, and
everything is hard to do in New Jersey.
And to be honest, that's that's a lot
more of the problem, in my opinion.
Yeah.
Brian Fitzherbert,
what do you think should be done to
to,
inform
the taxpayers
who continue
to put these kinds of people
in office who do nothing more than raise
our taxes
and make it more difficult for business to
stay in business because of the regulations?
Yeah. Look. This this has been a unfortunate
theme for decades now in the state of
New Jersey, and a lot of
the result of this is putting back the
same people that get elected that put these
ridiculous,
rules, regulations, and and laws in some cases,
that make us not competitive. And the only
other avenue that New Jersey has is to
try to compete
with states that are worse than New Jersey,
and there's not that many of them. Right?
You'd have to look at Massachusetts,
California, and Illinois,
to try and encourage businesses from those states
to come to New Jersey because by relative
standards, it's better. But if they have the
option to go to some place like Texas
or South Carolina or Florida, you know, if
you're gonna do do be doing a move
or an amortization
of your business,
you're gonna wanna go to some place where
it's cheaper,
on all ranks in in terms of doing
business. And, you know, there is some women's
right. It's not fixated to necessarily labor, but
it's fixated to an environment that makes it
so damn difficult. How many attorneys do you
have to hire to make sure that you're
qualified? How many things would that your accountants
have to do? I mean,
the added cost just to do business is
discouraging,
and that, unfortunately, is to our detriment here
in the Garden State even further because we
do have an exodus. We do have people
that are leaving the state of New Jersey
because it's too expensive to live here
from a tax burden standpoint, from a cost
of living burden standpoint, so they're leaving. But
we also have the same problem because in
New York City, people have it even worse.
So they're coming into North Jersey to replenish
those who have left New Jersey. So we
can't even have the the conclusion
or the ramifications
of,
these decisions because it's not really being solved
by people voting with their feet because they're
just being replenished in that environment. So it's
it's very difficult in the situation that we
have right now.
Assemblyman,
is there anything that that you can do,
that you can see coming up, perhaps in
your future that you might be able to
put a a a plan out there
that would change,
the direction we're going, that would perhaps eliminate
some of the bureaucracy, that would lower the
cost of doing business, and,
anticipate the fact that there will always be
regulations, but that there should be perhaps an
office that cuts regulations
like Donald Trump did when he came into
office.
Yeah. I'm a well, I could propose a
million things, and we have there's plenty of
examples. There was a red tape commission that
was out there that offered a bunch of
ways to cut down red tape in New
Jersey. The business community has tons of ideas.
I mean, I don't think that we should
try to replicate
Doge. I think that ended up being more
of a theatrics than anything else, honestly. But,
but what we can do is
bring meaningful change. The business community can tell
us exactly what they need. It's not hard.
You just gotta help them be able to
do business more effectively.
And so the answer is yes. I don't
have a whole lot of bills in there
in relation to that right now just because
it's also obvious
that I think that, you know, there has
to be and there has to be an
appetite to do it.
Right now, there's no appetite to do it.
It's more it's more the same, and you
can tell that by the governor's latest budget.
I mean, it was a budget increase of
$2,000,000,000.
A lot of it born as new taxes
on business
and on the bigger business, more discouraging business
to come. So right now, there's not an
appetite
to make New Jersey more business friendly. They
still see the business community as,
as a way to continue to feed their
revenue streams so they can tax and spend
more. Yeah. I think I think most of
us as citizens understand
that living in New Jersey, seeing our taxes
go up, seeing miss,
the governor,
add more and more taxes on things that
were never taxed before. It's like crazy land.
Anyway, please stay with us. We're gonna take
a break.
And, in the meantime, if there's anyone out
there who wants to ask a question of
assemblyman Brian Bergen,
I think now's the time to do it.
Perfect opportunity.
And, Brian Fitzherbert,
this is your show, my friend.
I don't know.
You and I shake our heads at what
happens in New Jersey. You and I shake
our heads at who, in fact, ended up
in the governor's seat. The least,
you know,
the least of the of the lessors,
ended up in the governor's seat. So we
have to
we have to continue to to abide by
what's going to happen to us in the
next,
three plus years, but
there's a lot to talk about. Anyway, stick
around. We'll be back after the break.
And it is Fitzherbert Friday
with Brian Fitzherbert, and, Brian has invited
assemblyman Brian Bergen,
to be with us. And Brian is part
and parcel of the government here in New
Jersey.
And that being said,
there are so many things, so many issues
that are out there,
including how are we going to have a,
an honest midterm
when
Democrats
refuse to pass the Save Act.
Either one of you can address that because
I'm befuddled
by these people not wanting to have a
really honest election.
Yeah. I'll kick this off from the federal
standpoint
perspective because, again, you need an ID for,
I don't know, dozens of things throughout the
country. You know, we have our 50 states
that are our, you know, our little laboratories
of democracy that have their own set of
rules and and, the way we do things
and, you know, the New Jersey state legislature,
just like all the others, determine how we
vote, etcetera.
But at the same time, on the federal
level with federal elections,
it shouldn't be very difficult to be able
to show an identification to go vote and
to prove you are who you say you
are as part of the voter rolls. Just
like you go to a bar and when
you're ordering alcohol, you prove that you're 21
or when you're buying cigarettes or when you
get on a plane to go
either, domestically or internationally.
It's not a ridiculous thought. And a lot
of these Democrats on the federal level that
have gone against this
are literally on camera not too long ago,
maybe a few decades ago, saying how important
it is to make sure they have a
Social Security card as identification to vote. It's
only now that it's become an issue.
And, you know, look, there's there's examples,
small, maybe a little bigger in terms of
that. But I think when you have polling,
consistent polling across
sexes, across races, across party lines
that have an 80% upwards
agreement that this is how we should do
it, that Americans
are the only ones who should decide American
elections.
I I find it very ridiculous that both
sides of the aisle,
seem to have any kind of resistance on
the federal level to passing the Save America
Act. And, you know, Brian, as an assemblyman,
can talk about the challenges
of, you know, a bill because the language
that's in there and what you have to
do to actually get this over the finish
line. But, I suspect that it's not just
language that's in,
the bill. It is,
resistance
for for access and for a lot of
ridiculousness. Like, trying to say that there are
women out there that are not smart enough
to update their voter registration when they get
married and they change from their maiden name
to their married name, I mean, that's pretty
insulting.
Yeah. I'd agree. Assemblyman,
what do you make of it?
I mean, I think the I I don't
know the the bill. I haven't read the
bill, in its entirety, to be honest with
you, because I'm more focused on stuff going
on here in New Jersey. But but I
will tell you that, you know, the the
notion of having
the requirement for voter ID is
not that big of a deal.
And I don't understand why that's a problem.
So I do need to go review the
Save Act and read it because the devil
can be in the details.
But,
but having voter ID just makes sense to
me and everybody else out there, and I
don't know why we don't do it.
Yeah. And when we consider
that,
ICE is
absolutely the enemy as far as the Democrat
politicians
in our state, how do we guarantee an
honest election
if in fact,
we can't have
officials there? Because we know,
after having gone through the voter rolls,
that there are
so many illegal immigrants
that came in, were told they could get
a license,
who then got a Social Security guard.
And when you get your license, you're always
asked, do you wanna vote?
And
who's not going to say yes to that
when in fact you're being pushed to do
it by the Democrats
who are in your district?
Do you think we have a chance of
having an honest midterm?
Yeah. Yes. I do. I think we have
a chance of having an honest midterm. I
I'm not
that
concerned that we don't have,
honest elections. I mean, there is there is
a certain degree of fraud that happens for
sure. But is it enough to to change
a congressional
race,
presidential race? In my personal opinion, no. It
doesn't rise to that level. But it does
have the ability to one or two or
10
voters who shouldn't be voting can change a
mayoral race in a town or a council
cedar. I mean, these races are decided by
a few votes, and the voter rolls need
to be cleaned up, one. Voter ID needs
to be instituted,
two. And the the motor vehicle, as you
mentioned before, when you go to get your
license,
you know, they just ask you if you
wanna vote, and then they ask you. You
have to say that you're a citizen, but
that's it. You just have to say yes
that you are. I mean, how ridiculous is
that? You need 30,000,000
proof things approved to get the license,
and you could just click a button to
say yes,
and all of a sudden you register to
vote. It's a big deal. And the voter
rolls, you know, are a big deal too.
So, you know, when you have people getting
vote by mail, they could be dead. They're
returning the ballot could get returned for them.
Again, do I think that,
you know, there's a tremendous amount of fraud
that rises to the level of influence of
congressional race here in New Jersey.
My answer would be no, but that doesn't
mean that we shouldn't safeguard it at all
costs.
We don't seem to have
a bureaucracy, though,
that does clean up voter rolls. We don't
seem to have people despite the fact that
we've got a huge
a huge,
bureaucracy out there in New Jersey and it
seems in every other state
that the taxpayer pays for, and yet what
are they doing
to
make sure that, voter rolls are cleaned up?
This to me They're not donating. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And and I'll jump in here. Yeah.
Yeah. I'll jump in here, Anne. And this
only means this is one of the things
that frustrates me because you got other
states. Right? You know, laboratories democracy that try
this, and you got a state like Ohio
that says, guess what? If you don't vote
in two consecutive or three consecutive elections, you're
removed from the voter rolls. So that helps
prevent,
you know, voters being on there for an
extended period of time. People who have left
the state that have passed away,
you name it. And it at least is
in administrative
control. I mean, in in the private sector
where, you know, I and and the assemblymen
work, you know, you don't have this kind
of bureaucracy where you don't know where every
little digit is going, whether that's hours for
labor, dollars,
or administrative costs, etcetera, that you you run
this. And a lot of this responsibility
falls on the clerks, and the clerks in
each of the 21 counties in New Jersey
should be a little more aggressive and welcome
a challenge to the decision or the executive
choices that they make because they are constitutional
And if there's an issue, then they can
be sued and things can be whittled out
through the courts. But there should be more
administrative,
you know, management of this so that you
know exactly who's on the rolls and who
can be removed.
Because, again, to the assemblyman's point, what happens
in a vote by mail scenario, god forbid,
we hope it never happens again like COVID,
where everyone receives a ballot in an apartment
complex that has had so many transient people
living there that
12 ballots show up, and you would hope
that no one's going to,
fill out those ballots and send them in,
especially when a signature verification has been waived.
But it may happen. Will it happen? That's
another story. But there's no reason why, just
like any kind of management of data, that
you can't be very good at doing so.
And, unfortunately, government is another example
of proving that they can't do anything better,
when there's an absence of,
incentive or profit to be more efficient.
Oh, Assemblyman. You wanna make a comment on
that?
Well, I just agree with everything that you
just said. I mean, it's, it's ridiculous that
we're in this position. And anybody who's run
for office knows how terrible the voter rolls
are. I mean, we go to places people
either have passed away or have moved
away or there's multiple names in one house.
There's people who are registered to vote under
their
their their married name, their maiden name.
It's it's it's a disaster.
Spelled with an initial
with a period.
Yeah. I've seen instances where you've got the
same name
registered three times, their full name,
their name with an initial, and a period,
and then their name within,
their initial and no period, and they're count
as three separate voter registrations and it's the
same person.
Right. And that was that was the challenge
in the 2020
election cycle.
Was that I think it was 2020,
because it was all vote by mail. So
you would get all three of those people
would get
a vote a ballot mailed to their house.
So now you have one person with three
ballots with their name on it, and you're
relying on them to only return one.
Yeah. I think that speaks to the fact
that there is, so so much in the
way of illegality
when it comes to our our vote.
Our voting rights are being taken away by
by people that don't even have citizenship,
and it is being pushed by Democrats
who seem to want these people to have
access to every form that would allow them
to say that they're citizens, but indeed they're
not.
Yeah. There's no compromise here that I mean,
there should be compromise and there should be
normalcy,
but everybody, you know,
everybody is pulling at the far far direction.
I mean, we have
Republicans screaming, you know, that every election is
stolen. Then we have Democrats saying that you
need to make sure everybody can vote. We
shouldn't do anything to control it. And those
are the extreme opinions. And then there's the
middle, which is like, listen,
there is fraud. Yes. But it's not you
know, it's it it it does not impact,
lies and level impact of a federal election,
but it needs to be addressed before one
day it does. And the way to do
that is to put meaningful controls in. That
just makes sense to everybody in the planet,
like voter ID.
Yeah. But the Dems don't want that. They
don't want voter ID. They don't want save.
They don't want people who,
ordinarily
have,
the means to show who they are.
They don't want that.
How do we get beyond
those those Democrats who are,
keeping us
from having
truly
safe, free, and honest elections?
The the time to do it is now.
I I don't they gotta push as hard
as they can to congressional level to get
this done. I don't I don't know how
to tell them to do it because I'm
not there in congress. There's a lot of
levers to pull in all these different places.
I know the ones in Jersey. I don't
know the ones there.
Yeah. And, again, this is this is where
at least debate is is beginning with this.
It'll carry out through the weekend, and there
are tools like these settlement talks around the
federal level, whether it's shifting to a talking
filibuster, which instead of just, you know, calling
the clerk
of congress and saying, hey. I'm not gonna
vote for this. So there's no reason to
even have this. So, therefore, it's a it's
a dead on arrival bill,
in terms of changing the rules. But, again,
talking about things, bringing attention to things, you
know, more or less,
to get more I mean, the the idea
to get more public backing behind this is
ridiculous given the polling that we've seen where
it's 80% plus,
support it time after time.
But as the settlement said, now is the
time when if the Republicans have this as
a campaign issue, as a policy issue, they
have the congress, they have the White House,
this is the time to do it.
Well, we see that,
there's incredible corruption
in the parties, and it's not just one
party.
It's it's certainly,
anyone who's running,
who wants to win will do whatever they
feel they have to do in order to
win.
And sometimes that includes,
election fraud.
I mean, if it's true that what happened
in Georgia
led to over 300,000
votes,
not being identified by the people that had
to identify them to make them count.
Then
who are we to say that any of
the elections, the previous elections, at least from
2020 when mail in ballots became so important
because of COVID,
Who are we to say that any election
from that time on has actually been safe
and secure and honest?
Yeah. That's that's where it gets difficult, and
you hope the voters will will rectify it,
you know, if there was argument over that
in the next election. And, you know, there
we have some constitutional tools, but we don't
have for all these instances. You know, our
founder group were brilliant, but I don't think
they they could foresee every single instance to
give a constitutional
tool to to have a a rectification for
that.
Right. And the thing that that
just to me is
any one person,
forget
whether,
you know, how much of an impact it's
had on elections or not. And people wanna
argue all different ways about it. But right
now, there clearly exists
the opportunity
for somebody to be nefarious,
and there should not be that opportunity.
So whether it happens, doesn't happen, happens a
lot, doesn't happen a little, none of that
really matters. The bottom line is the current
system creates an opportunity. We should close that
loophole
and get it done. That's the meaning. That's,
in my opinion, the most logical way to
present it to anybody on both sides. Like,
let's not argue about anything else other than
the fact that the current system
creates an opportunity.
We should close that opportunity so it never
happens. Because one person
voting illegally in our election is too many.
100%.
Yeah. And the fact that they,
that,
party does not want ICE officials
to be anywhere near the polling places,
I think, is is rather funny.
And I I don't understand
why
this is such a huge
issue
for them. ICE should be there. Police
should be there.
There should be a way to keep our
elections fraud free. And certainly, with the Democrats
wanting every illegal to be able to vote,
there should be ICE agents there who are
very well aware that this is going to
happen.
Well, I I don't completely agree with you
on that one. I mean, ICE the ICE
right now is a is a polarizing
force for whether it should be or should
not be. The way it's being portrayed, the
way it was you know, we had this
guy with the high and tight throwing gas
canisters at people in Friggin, Minnesota
really didn't help the situation.
And so, you know, I agree with supporting
us. There's a huge role for ICE. But
right now for for
by mistakes of people,
ICE has this polarizing effect. I think putting
ICE by polling locations
in New Jersey would be insensitive to that
fact and counterproductive.
And there are a lot of good solid
citizens
who would still not go because it makes
them uncomfortable. And I wouldn't want that. Now
that that is just a tiny microcosm
of the whole law enforcement community. There was
a push a couple years ago to not
allow police officers anywhere in their polling locations,
and that I completely
totally disagree with because
the that that's a that's different. The you
know, the ice right now, it's it's a
polarizing thing. So why drop it into
this mix
and create people being uncomfortable who are even
our citizens and won't go? But, please, that's
a horse of a different color in my
opinion.
I don't know. I think it's dangerous.
I I think the fact that that there
are that the Democrats have literally pushed these
illegal immigrants to vote, that is why they
were allowed in in the first place during
the Biden administration,
that they are there to
vote
and that if your city is a Democrat
city, that they, of course, are not going
to want ICE agents there to possibly pick
up illegals
that obviously don't even speak English, so many
of them. They come in,
they've been registered because they were able to
get a license and maybe even a a
Social Security card.
How and why should these people be allowed
in any way, shape, or form
to cast a vote? And why shouldn't
ICE agents
be somewhere in the area?
I mean,
you you you talk,
Brian,
as though
they're not going to show up,
in the hundreds, perhaps even in the thousands.
And those votes can literally change
the the direction
of, how a vote goes and who is
elected.
I don't know. I I see it as
an important piece.
I think the SAVED Act is the way
to solve that. I don't think having,
you know, armed ICE agents standing outside the
polling places places is a realistic approach. I
mean, the the police are there to protect
the polls. They're there to protect
the people in line. They're there to protect
everybody from anything that could happen to somebody
who wants to, you know, do harm to
people there. For ICE agents to be there
for the purpose of questioning people, I just
don't think it's the right time and place,
quite frankly. That's that's my opinion, though.
Well, I think,
yeah. You know, we all have differing opinions.
It's like I'd like to I'd like to
get rid of the bureaucrats. I'd like to
get rid of the huge bureaucracy that we
have. I think that it is so unnecessary
to have all the departments that we do.
And when you look at the budgets, you
know our money is being poured into bringing
more people into a bureaucracy
so that they get the vote.
That's totally true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think
it's good that we disagree. Look, if you
if all you do is bring people on
the show that you that you agree with,
then what the hell is that? You know?
We gotta
we gotta,
agree to disagree on certain things. I think
that's what makes us good. And the fact
that we do it in a cordial way
is kind of a demonstration that this is
kind of how these discussions should be taking
place instead of people just,
going crazy on each other and not listening.
Yeah. Especially when, you know, someone looks at
through a moral equivalency lens that guess what?
If you disagree with me, then you're evil
and we're not going to talk anymore. And
again, to your point, having conversation
and diverging opinions is fine. And there's nothing
wrong with that. And, you know, I think
we do it a little bit better on
our side of the aisle,
especially,
given how many different directions, especially in New
Jersey, Republicans can go. But, again, perfect example,
you know, to point someone in.
Yeah. It's unfortunate.
You know, I like ICE.
I respect ICE. I think ICE has a
purpose
and that they should be out on the
streets, particularly in communities where they know there
are a lot of illegals.
The problem is we've got a governor today
that says, take out your phones.
Take videos of these people.
Keep them from doing their jobs.
As far as I'm concerned, Mikey Sheryl belongs
behind bars because she is that bad for
our state.
She is that bad for the citizens who
pay taxes, who end up supporting illegal immigrants.
She's that bad for democracy.
So
Oh, we gotta beat her in we gotta
beat her in four years.
Yeah. Yeah. We certainly do. Brian, I'm sure
you'll perhaps be running,
in
that respect,
and
maybe you'll have as
your coordinator,
my own Brian Fitzherbert,
on Fitzherbert Friday.
Yeah. Very interesting,
time ahead, and,
hopefully, we'll all find our way to having
honest elections
and actually hiring the right people. As you've
been hired, Assemblyman Bergen,
I wanna thank you for giving us your
very precious time to be on air with
us this morning. And, Brian, Fitzherbert, needless to
say, it's Fitzherbert Friday.
I'm so glad that you brought Assemblyman Bergen
in,
to speak with us.
I hope you'll come back. I hope that
when other things, other issues arise that, you
will you will be back here,
explaining them to us. And in the meantime,
I wanna thank you both for being here,
and,
have a wonderful weekend, and let's hope for
a great midterm election
for Republicans.
Alright. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate
it. Have a great weekend. Thank you. Absolutely.
Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thank you, guys.
I appreciate it.