Sen. Cory Booker’s Republican challenger used a New Jersey Senate debate this week to deliver a pointed message to President Donald Trump on the Iran conflict: “Finish it.” The line drew applause from the audience Thursday and a visible reaction from Booker, who mouthed “Wow” before criticizing the remark on air.
The challenger, Justin Murphy, a Pine Barrens attorney and former Tabernacle Deputy Mayor, was asked what advice he would give Trump if the president called him about the war. Murphy didn’t hedge.
“Finish that war in a positive manner,” Murphy said. “We can’t wait halfway through and decide we don’t want to do this anymore. The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a radical terrorist organization that has deprived the Iranian people, the Persian people, of their history and of a decent life.”
Murphy went further, telling Trump to “put your cowboy hat on and get out there and kick some a–, and get this done and done right,” after arguing that “four decades is enough” and that the Iranian people “have suffered enough.”
Cameras caught Booker shaking his head and pursing his lips during Murphy’s answer. When moderator David Wildstein turned to him, Booker didn’t hold back.
“Honestly, this is the kind of ‘Yahoo’ foreign policy that has mired us in Middle East war after Middle East war — with false bravado leaders saying we’re just going to go in there and kick ass. Well, you know what that’s done to the treasury of our country?” Booker said.
Asked the identical hypothetical about advising Trump, Booker first joked that Wildstein was asking him about “a guy calling me for advice who has literally said ‘I know more than my generals.'” He then said he and other New Jerseyans have long experience with Trump because he “bankrupted our casinos,” a reference to the president’s former Atlantic City casino ventures. Booker also claimed that aides once had to “jangle keys” to keep Trump focused during a meeting on the trans-Hudson rail tunnel project he has pushed alongside Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
A long-shot bid in a hardening blue state
New Jersey has trended more competitive in recent cycles, with Trump flipping key areas of the state in 2024. Still, no Republican has won a U.S. Senate election outright in New Jersey since Sen. Clifford Case’s re-election in 1972. Two Republicans have held the seat briefly through appointment since then — Nick Brady in 1982 and Jeff Chiesa in 2013.
Murphy also drew attention during the debate for comments on illegal immigration, recounting a campaign stop in Washington, N.J., where he said he looked across at a home tied to the case of a child allegedly abducted and raped by Lester Noe Perez-Amador, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. According to WRNJ, the Biden administration had previously released Perez-Amador after a Texas county alerted ICE that it had taken him into custody.
The Iran exchange, beyond generating attention for a Republican running against a well-established Democratic incumbent, laid bare continuing splits — both between the parties and inside the GOP itself — over how far Trump’s military campaign should go and how it should end.
