TRENTON, NJ – Many in New Jersey are starting to feel like Governor Phil Murphy is continually moving the goal post on the COVID-19 field. Each time New Jersey thinks its getting closer, the finish line has moved and today, Murphy was asked about this by Paul Mulshine of the Star-Ledger, even going Trump-Lite on the well respected reporter.
Days earlier, Mulship wrote that everyone in New Jersey is getting tired of Phil Murphy’s one man show.
Here’s what Murphy said:
So, listen, I think we’ve done a good job, Paul, of keeping — by the way, Paul, you said my one-man show is getting tired, but you showed up today. I don’t read your articles. I haven’t done that for years. But I do read your headlines. I want you to know that I do pay attention, and I take some sort of affection from you, that you would show up today, having written that headline.
Ok, let’s call the BS right here. When a politician tells a reporter “I don’t read your articles”, that means they read it every damn waking day hoping you either said something good about them or praying you didn’t just crap on their day. It’s fact. Not only is it fact, it’s scientifically proven fact…back to the Governor’s comments.
Listen, John [Bramnick] and I communicate a lot. I think we communicate with our Legislative colleagues a lot. In fact, I think George had a call this morning, and we invited all Legislators in both chambers, both sides of the aisle, to walk through exactly what we’ve done today as it relates to testing. We have at least scheduled a leadership meeting tomorrow to talk about budget and funding and appropriations. We had a call, I think Saturday morning, am I right? With legislators. You all joined me with that. I think the communication is high and I think the respect for what they bring to this, versus what we may bring to this, is nothing but what it should be. I’ll hopefully get a chance to connect with John and get more on that.
The benefit, Paul, no, not that it’s an unending extension because we’re going to, as I said, by the end of this week that I would hope that we’re going to be able to take some more steps. What I meant was, as a purely health matter, if you look at the models that Judy and Christina and others on the team look at, and you stop at any moment in time, and you lower your guard on social distancing — by the way, not because we’re sloppy, but because we made a decision that we’re going to open up whatever it is, beaches or whatever it might be. And you compare what the health reality would have looked like if you had stayed with that another two weeks, that you had not done that, it is a dramatic difference.
So all I’m saying is, again, we’re not myopic on only the health piece of this, but we are obsessed with the order of events, which is public health creates economic health, and not the other way around. And so there’s an enormous public health benefit to staying the course. Not indefinitely, I’m not saying that, it’s not Groundhog Day, every two weeks you get another two weeks. But at any point in time, whatever action you could take that day versus 14 days later, you get an enormous public health benefit from that. And that’s something that we pay, Judy, I don’t want to put words in your mouth and Christina, but that’s something we pay very, very close attention to.
Because if we can bring this thing, if we can bring this sucker as close to zero as possible, we have advanced ourselves enormously not just in public health, but in economic health. Thank you. Daniel, good afternoon.