(upbeat music) - Hi folks.

We are honored to be joined by United States Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill.

Congresswoman, good to see you.

- Nice seeing you.

Thanks for having me.

- As always.

Let me ask you this.

Your colleague from California, Katie Porter, Congresswoman Katie Porter, has written a book and I know you know the book.

It's called, "I Swear, Politics is Messier Than My Minivan."

How messy is politics these days, 2023 in DC and Congress?

- You know, that's a really interesting question because I was just speaking to someone who was a chief of staff in the '70s when he felt that politics worked a lot better, when Congress worked a lot better.

He said it was messier.

He said members of Congress were less busy, but that passing legislation was actually messier, which I found very interesting.

I think what we have today though, is people have a great deal more insight into how we pass legislation than they did in the '70s.

- Along those lines, whole range of critical issues.

Inflation, concerns about a recession.

Ukraine, you've been very involved, very committed, and very clear on where you stand on this.

Where do we as a country need to stand, particularly given your background in military service and understanding these issues from a perspective that most of us who have never served do not.

Where do we need to stand, shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine?

- Well, that's exactly where we need to stand, shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

One of the great leadership moments of the United States of America was coalescing our democratic allies in NATO, and that really ensured that until 2014, we hadn't seen a nation overtaking the sovereignty of another nation in Europe, which was really amazing because the United States, the world had been drawn into endless cycles of war originating in western Europe and that ended that effectively for many, many decades.

Unfortunately, with the encroachment of Russia into Ukraine and the nations around the world watching carefully, other would-be autocrats or nations that would like to take over the sovereign territory of other regions, they are watching this very, very closely.

So it is imperative that Ukraine win this and that Russia understand at the end of this that this was a huge mistake and they cannot continue to do this.

They can't, you know, take a period of time off as they did after 2014, reassess, and then come back and do this again.

We need to make sure that we can build a lasting peace after this.

- Congresswoman, follow up on that real quick before we move to immigration.

The biggest difference in terms of our national policy as it relates to the war in Ukraine and its inter, our interaction with Russia and Vladimir Putin between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is?

- Well, I think what you've seen is Donald Trump, and this was one of my great concerns about his presidency, and as you probably know, I had many concerns but this one, I think really was shaking some of the foundations of our relationships around the world, is Donald Trump was far more attracted to autocrats like Putin, like Xi, very impressed when Xi became President for life.

You could probably see in some of that the idea that he would try to carry out on January 6th when he tried to stay in office.

So I think it was very dangerous that he was forming closer relationships with people and countries that stood contrary to our values and pushing aside those key democracies that have stood with us so many times over the last several decades since World War II in promoting democratic values across the world.

President Biden has not done that.

In fact, I will tell you before my first trip to Kyiv in the weeks leading up, it was about a week and a half before the war started, I went to Kyiv, we spoke to President Zelensky.

We stopped in Brussels on the way there and I spoke with our NATO allies in Brussels.

The sense of relief was palpable that the United States was ready to lead again.

We are the key leader in NATO, and you could tell that our NATO allies were very relieved to have us back and then very willing to coalesce behind our leadership to support Ukraine.

- I'm gonna get to immigration in a second, but the Jersey STRONG agenda, dealing with the SALT deduction, saving SALT deduction, taking care of veterans and dealing with auto thefts, optimizing women's healthcare, and nominating more labor representatives, getting quote, stuff done.

Question, we have an initiative called Reimagined Childcare.

The website will be up.

Where does childcare, affordable accessible childcare, fit into this Jersey Strong agenda?

- The Jersey Strong agenda is based on what I hear directly from my constituents.

So of course, childcare is enmeshed in that.

I have to tell you that I, my oldest is 17 years old and I still remember 17 years ago desperately trying to find childcare somewhere that was safe and affordable and it turned out I found somewhere that was safe but certainly, I wouldn't call it affordable because I was paying my entire paycheck at different times into childcare.

That has not changed.

It's grown worse for working families today.

In fact, a single parent pays about, the median income pays about 40% of that income in childcare.

That's unacceptable, and that's why I've put together legislation that would result in no one paying more than 7% of their income in childcare.

So that would take a family earning $130,000 down from over $2,000 a month to about $200 a month.

- By the way, go on the Congresswoman's website to find out more about her policy initiatives.

Real quick on this, not that it's a real quick subject, American immigration policy.

What exactly do you believe we need to be doing as a country on the southern border?

- You know, I believe we need to do what I've been talking about for years now and come up with a comprehensive solution, and I think we are now closer to that.

I wouldn't say we are close to that.

We are closer to that than we've been in five years.

We've seen bipartisan efforts.

Those are continuing to build.

My friend Veronica Escobar, who I sit on the House Armed Services Committee with, is working with Maria Salazar and the Republican Party to come together on what we can do to address security at our southern border, to make sure we have a pathway to citizenship for people who are here, to address international criminal syndicates in South and Central America, the things we need to do to make sure that we have a more fair immigration system and also protect what comes in and out of our borders, because at our southern border, at many of our ports, we are seeing an uptick in fentanyl from China that is really devastating here in this country.

- Congressman, shift gears dramatically.

The CHIPS and Science Act, what the heck does it have to do with semiconductors and what does semiconductors have to do with inflation in our economy, please?

- Sure, so as everyone's aware, our supply chains were really put in danger over COVID, and we were seeing huge problems getting these semiconductor chips, and so that's why you see the pictures of Ford F150s on the tarmac in Michigan.

We simply couldn't have those chips which run so many things across our economy.

What the CHIPS and Science Act is doing is reassuring American manufacturing, especially in those very high end chips.

So while semiconductor chips come from all over the world, the very high end semiconductor chips are very tightly controlled.

There are very few people that have the know-how how to make those, and so we are making sure that not only do we produce them here but we also are making sure that we can control that technology because we have learned in, you know, we just can't trust China in some of these national security spaces to be good partners.

We've seen too much technology transfer, force technology transfer, too much espionage, IP theft.

So that's why we are fencing off certain national security areas where we will only produce those with trusted partners and much of that we are now reshoring home to produce those here in this country.

- You've been listening to United States Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, happens to be the member of Congress who represents the community I live in, and I, we appreciate you joining us, Congresswoman, and we'll continue the conversation with you in the future, and while we're not a political program that does political prognostication or horse racing, or what's coming up in a future election, I just wanna disclose that there are a fair number of people who talk about the Congresswoman as a potential candidate for governor in the great state of New Jersey in 2025.

Doesn't feel that far off.

Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thanks so much for having me.

- I'm Steve Adubato, that's the Congresswoman.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

IBEW Local 102.

Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

Operating Engineers, Local 825.

Rowan University Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship.

PSE&G, And by New Brunswick Development Corporation.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by Meadowlands Media.

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