Mikey Sherrill

You know, what I learned over the last year is it's important to constantly connect with the people you're serving, to hear day in and day out about what's going on in their lives and how, as governor, as somebody elected to serve them, I can make their opportunity better, make their lives more secure, protect their kids.

That's what I committed to doing, driving down costs in this affordability crisis, giving a better future to our kids.

and holding government accountable for the ways in which it can do all of these things.

And so I got to work right away.

And that's why, as we charted out the state of emergency on utility costs, I froze rate hikes in the middle of my inaugural address as I was continuing to work to make government more accountable and put an online dashboard up so people could see where their money was going in this budget.

and focus the budget on taking care of our kids and their mental health and online safety.

I was hearing again and again about how concerned people were about their safety, the interactions they'd had on the streets here in New Jersey with ICE agents, the masked people that were carrying weapons that refused to identify themselves or

give any—you know, give any update on what they were doing.

We were reaching out to DHS to say, what is the plan here?

Why are they in certain spaces?

We were seeing dangerous interactions where kids dispersed and ran away as they were going through pickup on the bus in the mornings, and principals madly trying to find out where these kids were who were supposed to be in school.

So, again and again, seeing dangerous situations with no accountability.

So I moved.

I said, look, I have pledged to keep our streets and our kids safe, and that's what I'm going to do.

And I'll tell you, I can't weigh in on nationally or where people should go in any given moment.

I can tell you in New Jersey, if you are fighting for the people that you serve, if you're willing to stand up to anyone, including the president of the United States, as I am, then you're going to do quite well.

You know, I have constituents who ask me about gas prices and affordability.

I have a lot of constituents, and we have National Guard deployed right now in the Middle East who want to know what the plan is.

And then, you know, we just have people who were committed to—they said, I thought this president was going to end the forever wars.

That's what he said.