Trump continues to wage war on states across the nation, [Minnesota being his latest target]. with his most recent target being Minnesota. This morning, he audaciously went so far as to threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy U.S. military in to Minneapolis if the to halt anti-ICE protests did not halt. If Trump is willing to act this way towards one state, what’s stopping him from turning his rage towards all of them?
Governor-elect of New Jersey Mikie Sherrill joins Jen to explain how she’s preparing to protect the citizens of her state from unfair attacks from the federal government, whether it comes in the form of unaffordable healthcare or ICE raids. Sherrill also outlines her enthusiasm for making government work for people and the importance of staying coordinated with other Democratic Governors
Mikie Sherrill is the Governor-elect of New Jersey. She previously served in Congress representing New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of the Contrarian. We’re delighted to have with us Governor-elect of New Jersey, . I met Mikie when she was a congresswoman, even before she was a congresswoman running for office, and look at her now! Congratulations again, Governor-elect. Tell us what you’re doing in the days leading up to your inauguration next week.
Mikie Sherrill
We are running full speed ahead. Yes, it’s hard to believe how long it’s been, actually. And, you know, many people are saying, you are the reason for my success. Long time… you’re a long time interviews. But, I do so appreciate you having me today, because there’s so much going on, and, as we prepare for this inauguration. As I’m taking my seat in the 250th year of this nation, with everything that is going on at the federal level, it is, we are both meeting with people on executive orders. We’re, of course, meeting with people to get the inauguration done and all the logistics of the swearing in. We’re constantly having policy briefs for the stuff that we’re going to do after. Remember, you know, my budget will be due in a few short weeks.
Then we have the FIFA World Cup here that we will be hosting, the largest sports event in the world in just a few months, so there’s a lot on my plate here in New Jersey, but it feels very exciting because so many people have said to me, and I agree, that here you can breathe. that with the oppressive stuff going on around the country, and what we see coming out of Washington, there’s sort of a spark of hope here in New Jersey, given what happened in the last election, and the people we are bringing in to really build a strong and effective government for the people of New Jersey.
Jen Rubin
Give us a little bit of a preview of your first week or so. You ran very strongly on the affordability issue, on energy prices, home prices. What can the people of New Jersey expect in the first couple weeks?
Mikie Sherrill
So, I told people in New Jersey, I’m not playing around, I mean, we are going to hit the ground running, meaning that on day one, on January 20th, as I take my oath, I will be, effecting change right away. I will be signing executive orders, for example, to freeze utility costs. I’m going to also set up different ways of accountability on day one, so people can see where their tax dollars are going and hold government accountable, and protecting kids, with some kids’ online safety agenda items, because we see so many mental health problems and so much going on online. So, the commitments I made during the campaign to protect kids, to drive down costs, to have government accountability, will start to be affected in the very first hours of my tenure, which I am really excited about.
Jen Rubin
Housing is a big issue in New Jersey, and it is an expensive place to live, and that’s because a lot of people want to live there, which is a good thing. What are your plans on the housing front?
Mikie Sherrill
We are seeing housing costs here in New Jersey just skyrocket. We’ve seen them go up by about 50% in the last 5 years, so I always say, if you are in an area of the country where you’re experiencing, housing cost pressure, in New Jersey, it’s on steroids for so many reasons. Many people have chosen to move here. We have an innovative economy. We’re trying to fight back against so much of what’s going on federally to take away opportunity from people and really drive in resources to create better opportunities for kids and families.
So people are attracted to that, but at the same time, if we are going to have the workforce we need, and if we are going to make sure families can afford to stay here. we’ve got to address those housing costs. It’s how people build generational wealth. And so, with that in mind, we’re going to beef up that first-time homebuyers program, because some people just can’t even get their foot in the door in the market. We’re also, going to work with different labor organizations who have money that they want to leverage on building workforce housing, making sure that we’re doing transit-oriented development, because what New Jersey also struggles with is we’re the most densely populated state in the nation. We don’t have a lot of open space. We have a fragile environment. We want to protect watersheds. We want to protect green spaces.
So, building out a plan to build housing in some of the more densely populated areas of our towns across the state. We have a lot of train stations, a lot of bus depots, making sure that transit-oriented development is a key place And that’s how people want to live, as well. People want to be able to get to work easily. So all of this feeds into other things when we’re driving down costs. It’s housing costs, but then it’s making sure our transportation system is well paid for and, well resourced, so people can then get to and from the jobs in our economy, making sure that we are making those investments all across our state, so including in South Jersey.
It’s freezing rate hikes. I’m declaring a state of emergency on day one to freeze rate hikes for utility costs. It’s making sure that we are addressing H.R. 1 and the horrible hits that Trump has made to the Affordable Care Act so that we can actually continue to drive down costs and create affordable medical care. All of these things are on the table, and while We see at every turn. The Trump administration is acting in ways that are raising costs for people. And people are working to enrich themselves at that level. In New Jersey, we’re flipping that on its head. We are working at every level and in every way possible to create those opportunities for families, so you have a good, stable job, and your kid can do just a little bit better than you’ve done.
Jen Rubin
The Trump administration is making it hard for all governors, all Americans. Let’s take the healthcare front first. The ACA subsidies have expired, and it doesn’t look like the Republicans are gonna get their act together, and you, in another year, have Medicaid cuts coming down the road. What can New Jersey do, and what what are your plans to try to absorb some of that burden?
Mikie Sherrill
It’s really striking. You have a Trump administration where Trump and his family have been making billions of dollars by all reporting, where his friends are making untold millions. And yet, at every turn, they’re raising costs on everyday families. So, for example, we have a large Indian-American community around Edison, New Jersey, and Trump has put 50% tariffs on goods coming from India, many of them not made here. You know, so there was a good business in much of that. A lot of small businesses are being impacted. We are seeing costs go up in utility costs, because they are saying you can only generate this type of power. And we know we need an all-of-the-above strategy. So, our power generation is a mix. Solar, battery storage, gas generation, nuclear generation, and yet Trump has said we’re only going to go for it in this one area, which is raising costs on everybody here in New Jersey.
So, at every level, whether it’s grocery store prices, whether it’s utility costs, whether it’s threatening jobs and the economy, you see costs going up as the Trump administration is pocketing billions. And certainly, you’ve really highlighted one area where they have just really attacked affordability, and that’s in the healthcare space. So, when we’re looking at how we drive opportunity, a lot of that is just making sure your kid’s healthy, so you can go to work, so they can go to school. Right? And do, you know, create opportunity, and yet attacking federally qualified health centers, so that nobody can get ahead.
And then attacking the Affordable Care Act, so that for those people who still have health insurance, they’re about to lose it because they’re just not going to be able to pay. So I’m really excited about, the commissioner I’ve hired for the Department of Health, and the commissioner I’ve hired for, the Department of Human Services here in New Jersey, because they are tasked with continuing to drive down costs in healthcare for people across the state, whether it’s tying routine checkups to K-12 schools, or making sure we’re expanding those federally qualified health centers to help with primary care. We are working really hard to not lose the gains we’ve made over the years that Democrats have put in place to get people basic healthcare, because we know that if we go back to the battle days of charity care with The emergency rooms, that’s the most expensive. And it is going to really put a huge hole in our budget.
Jen Rubin
Now, Donald Trump has essentially declared war on the state of Minnesota. We’ve all seen those horrible images. The ICE street shop troops are shooting Americans, they’re dragging people out of cars, out of their homes. Do you have a game plan for how to respond if Trump descends on New Jersey?
Mikie Sherrill
We have, a really sharp team of people in the Attorney General’s office, and we are beefing that up as well. The person who will be taking over as Attorney General, my Chief Counsel, they are already engaged with the current members who have several of these cases. They are table-topping and, what I would have called wargaming back in my military days, of how this is going to operate, how we get quickly in the courts to block much of this. We’ve seen real success in places like Oregon, and success in, Illinois and California, so we’ve been in touch with those states so that we are ready on day one to start to take this on.
The legislature is already working to, pass into statute some of the regulations we have, and then beef up some of them with things like the Immigrant Trust Directive, and then several other pieces of law, so that that will give, that will give our state more power to combat any malfeasance, because what we’re seeing is far outside the scope of the duties of ICE which gives us legal power to take them on, because they’re not acting in their federal role as ICE agents, they are, going beyond that and, for example, assaulting people on the street. They are not in conjunction with the duties they are supposed to be performing.
So in these ways, we are prepared to fight back strongly and aggressively, and the reason we’ve gotten so engaged is we want to be ready on day one. I keep saying, like this is the moment, and anything can happen. And here in New Jersey, we’re prepared for it. The good news about New Jersey is, when I say anything can happen here, I mean, it often does. So, we have so many things going on, and we have such a great population of people who are resilient, who are aggressive, we are called brash and arrogant, but that also means that we’re not going to take anything lying down. And so we are ready, and I think we saw that in the ‘25 elections. We had bomb threats, people came out to vote anyway. They are not going to put up with the nonsense that people here in New Jersey, I think, are very strong-willed and ready to drive this state forward and protect their families.
Jen Rubin
Your outgoing AG and the outgoing Governor have been really magnificent in coordinating with other states, to defend themselves, to advocate on behalf of their citizens, whether it’s birthright citizenship or it’s defending NIH grants. How important is it going to be for you to be in concert and collaborate with your fellow Democratic governors?
Mikie Sherrill
It’s incredibly important right now, because this administration is just acting illegally in so many spaces. Certainly, internationally, I mean, you know, committing war crimes by bombing people in civilian painted aircraft is a war crime. But also locally, when they’re taking away millions of dollars from school systems, that Congress has appropriated those school systems. We successfully clawed that back. You know, New Jersey’s a state that pays $70 billion more in federal taxes than we received back.
And so for the federal government to fail to fund the programs, like the Affordable Care Act, or like our school systems, that they are on the hook for, you know. We have been very successful in court working with other states to claw back much of that money, and we are going to continue to do so because, certainly, we continue to see threats and attacks on things like our infrastructure, our programs for the Hudson River Tunnel, different areas where Trump keeps saying he is going to target these programs. illegally. I mean, he’s completely thwarting the will of Congress and acting like a dictator, and we are going to take him on because The courts have found in favor of generally, and I know this shouldn’t have to be said, but of simply forcing him to follow the law.
Jen Rubin
Exactly, exactly. So, you have had a great number of jobs. You’ve been a prosecutor, you’ve been a military leader, you’ve been in the House, and now you’re going to the governorship. Along the way, and as you prepare to go on, have you developed a philosophy of governance, a style, an attitude towards governance, and if so, what can New Jerseyans expect? Every governor is different, everyone has their own style and their own way of operating. What’s going to be yours?
Mikie Sherrill
It’s so interesting to me because, you’d think that you sort of don’t always understand what has formed you differently from other people. You sort of do things and you think everybody does these things. But what has really become clear as I’ve been serving that there is a certain type of training in the military that I have brought with me. And there’s a couple things that I think are really telling. One is servant leadership. I deeply admire the and hold accountable people in public service. Because to me, it’s not just a job. You’re not sitting in your office, and you either get your paperwork today, or you get to it next week, and as long as you get it done in the next 6 months, it’s gonna be fine, right? People’s lives are depending on you getting your job done. People are either going to get their, you know, their food assistance benefits or not. They’re going to be able to feed their family or not. People are going to be able to open their small business, or maybe their small business is going to go under if you don’t get through the permitting quickly, if you don’t help them start making money for their families.
So, serving in government is critically important, and it’s a big responsibility, and you need to always lead with this idea that you are serving the public. It is not simply about, you know, you being in this position, as we see with Donald Trump, to enrich yourself or to gain, you know, celebrity. It is about serving people. It’s about making sure that everything you’re doing helps support the people that you’re leading. And so, servant leadership is really key to me. The other piece of it is being proactive. I sometimes say. You know, if you’re standing on a hill getting shot at, you need to get off that hill. And there may be a best way off that hill. And you don’t necessarily need that, you just need to get off that hill. You just need to find the way off that hill, and make sure you are being proactive, and you are making decisions, and you are moving.
And in too many cases, we see in government people getting stuck in the status quo, in inertia, in the way things have always been done. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told, well, Mikey, you can’t do that. That’s never been done. Or, that’s not how we do it. And I have to look at people and say, but we just had a discussion about how the way we’re doing it is not working. So we’ve got to move. And what has been really, exciting is how many people in public service are excited by that. How many people really want to take on these challenges? Because they want to serve people, they want to have good answers for people. When people come to them who are suffering and struggling, they want to address that.
And so, we are coming to the table with a lot of real expertise. in how we can make government work better for people. And we are bringing, you know, we have people nationally. who’ve come from across the country that are excited to get involved in this. We have people who’ve worked in public service in New Jersey their entire lives, who know deeply what people need to have to thrive. And then we have people who’ve sort of worked in public service here in New Jersey, left. gotten more expertise and are coming back. So we sort of have every level so that we can build out a team who is going to create the best results for people. But we are so excited to just get to work and make government work for people.
Jen Rubin
Well, it is an exciting time for you and for New Jersey, and as I have told my Contrarian readers and viewers, Democratic governors are where it’s at, folks. These are the folks who are going to show that you can govern humanely, responsibly, make government work for people, and what a contrast that will be to the federal government. So, best of luck. And, next time we speak, I can just refer to it as Governor Sherrill. So that will be fun.
Mikie Sherrill
Well, thank you so much. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I think I get asked a lot about, you know, what people should be doing in these times, and I just say, watch New Jersey. We’ll show you.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much. Very proud of my home state, so take care, and we’ll see you.
Mikie Sherrill
Thank you. Take care.
