The Interview
At least one delegate never made it to Chicago this week: former Sen. Bob Menendez. The three-term Democrat, convicted on corruption charges this summer, officially resigned his office on Tuesday. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy appointed George Helmy, his former chief of staff, to fill the seat; Republican Curtis Bashaw will face Democratic Rep. Andy Kim in November, after Murphy’s wife ended her own campaign for the Democratic nomination.
While Democrats partied, Americana talked with Murphy about that decision, and — as a Goldman Sachs veteran and governor of a high-income, high-tax state — whether the first pieces of the Harris-Walz economic agenda would help Democrats win. This is an edited transcript of the conversation.
Q&A
Americana: What did you make of Harris’s first set of economic ideas? Should every Democrat be running on them?
Phil Murphy: I thought it was a very good start. We’ve done a lot of what she’s proposing in New Jersey. We know it works. Take things like the child tax credit — we know that’s a winner. We know more affordable housing is a winner. She’s not talking about price caps; that’s been sorted by others. She’s making sure the bad actors out there don’t take advantage of a high inflation period, and that we enforce price gouging laws. We have those on our books and we do that in New Jersey. Those are smart things to do.
Americana: And the idea of a $25,000 grant for first-time homebuyers?
Phil Murphy: Oh, yeah. Why do I say that? Because we’ve done it in Jersey. It’s a huge success. It’s had a particularly outsized impact on young, black and brown communities who are buying their first home. We’ve done it and we love it. Now, it’s not the only solution. We need more supply of housing. We are the ultimate example of that in New Jersey. But I am all for both first time homeowner assistance and for building out more housing stock, particularly affordable housing,
Americana: What would you say overall about her start — how did this change the race?
Phil Murphy: I think this is matched only by those Obama glory days. I’ve never seen a month like this. Dollars, both big and small, polls, people willing to volunteer, the passion in the convention, the past couple of nights, the passion at her rallies — we’re living in a moment here, and I honestly didn’t see it coming.
Americana: How did it happen? I don’t like to use the word “unprecedented,” but we really haven’t seen someone’s approval rating jump 10 points after they already have a national profile.
Phil Murphy: She’s had a flawless month, including picking Tim [Walz] as a running mate. I also think there’s a pent-up passion, almost difficult to measure, of wanting to beat Donald Trump at all costs. In the Obama glory days, it was 90+ percent about love for Barack Obama and very about disliking John McCain. This is different. Kamala Harris is incredibly impressive. Tim Walz is incredibly impressive, but there’s a very significant chunk of: We can’t let this guy get in the way.
Americana: We just learned that new jobs were revised down over the last year, by around 800,000. How worried are you about an economic shift that hurts Harris before the election?
Phil Murphy: You can’t take anything for granted, but I’ll be very surprised if they don’t cut rates in September. The only question is how much. I thought of the inflation number that came in last week as sort of the ultimate Goldilocks number, in the sense that it wasn’t so low that people got worried about a recession, and it wasn’t so high that it undermined The Fed’s likelihood of cutting rates. The Fed is trying to do something that is highly unusual, which is basically bring inflation down without cratering the economy. So far, so good.
Americana: On Bob Menendez, now that he’s gone: Do you want President Biden to consider pardoning him? Do you worry that Donald Trump would?
Phil Murphy: I’ve got no insight on any of that. I take a pass. It was a tragic ending to a multi-decade, largely notable public service career, but it ended in an awful way, convicted by a jury of his peers. I’m happy to have turned the page. We’ve got a great interim senator and two very good candidates running, and we’ll see where that goes.
Americana: You have two good candidates running?
Phil Murphy: I happen to know both of them well! But obviously, I’m a Democrat, so you can imagine where I’m going to be.
Americana: There are people who see that Andy Kim was not appointed, and wonder if that was a slight against him. Was it?
Phil Murphy: Listen, there’s a tradition in New Jersey where, when this happens, you don’t put your finger on the scale. I called Andy last Friday morning, I called Curtis, I told them the same message. When the election is certified, which is in late November, interim Senator George Helmy will step down, and the winner will step in. And I think that’s the right way to do it.