New Jersey Republican Senate nominee Justin Murphy brought the house down at Rider University on Thursday night — and left Sen. Cory Booker momentarily speechless — with a blunt answer about the war in Iran that had the incumbent Democrat shaking his head and pursing his lips.
Asked by New Jersey Globe moderator David Wildstein what he would tell President Trump if the president called him for advice on the conflict, Murphy, a Navy veteran and attorney from the Pine Barrens, did not hesitate. According to Fox News Politics, Murphy reached back to the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis before closing with a line that stunned the room.
"Four decades is enough. The Iranian people have suffered enough," Murphy said. "And I would say, 'Mr. President, put your cowboy hat on and get out there and kick some a–, and get this done and done right.'"
The crowd erupted in applause. The broadcast's split-screen showed Booker looking down and shaking his head before pursing his lips through the rest of Murphy's response, according to Fox News Politics. At one point, the Democrat raised his eyebrows. As Wildstein gestured toward Booker to respond, the incumbent mouthed a single word: "Wow."
Booker then fired back, dismissing Murphy's stance as "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," per the Fox News Politics account. The Gateway Pundit reported that Booker had earlier called Trump's decision to confront the Iranian regime "one of the most colossally stupid things the president has ever done" and claimed the country is stuck in "another Middle East quagmire."
The exchange laid bare the two candidates' opposing approaches to the conflict. Murphy defended Trump's military campaign. Booker warned against what he described as another prolonged war in the region, insisting military force should only come as a last resort after diplomacy.
Murphy, who served four years in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Comte De Grasse, including time in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War, rejected the quagmire framing outright, according to The Gateway Pundit. He also served as Deputy Mayor of Tabernacle before entering the Senate race.
Booker, for his part, entertained the hypothetical of advising Trump — but turned it into an attack on the president's New Jersey business record. The Democrat said he and the rest of the state have known Trump for years because he "bankrupted our casinos," a reference to the president's former Atlantic City casino holdings, according to Fox News Politics. News Beep also covered Booker's criticism of Murphy's Iran stance from the debate.
The stakes for the Garden State seat are real. New Jersey is a blue state that has trended redder in recent years, with Trump flipping key areas in 2024. But not since 1972, when Sen. Clifford Case was re-elected, has a Republican won a U.S. Senate election in New Jersey. Sens. Nick Brady in 1982 and Jeff Chiesa in 2013 later served brief, appointed terms, Fox News Politics noted.
The debate was the pair's only scheduled matchup, giving Murphy one shot on a statewide stage to make his case to voters who have sent Booker to Washington for more than a decade. Whether a single viral moment in a college debate hall can move a state that hasn't elected a Republican senator in more than half a century is the question Republicans are now asking.
It is not yet known whether the Murphy campaign plans to amplify the exchange with paid advertising or further appearances in the race's closing stretch.
Our Take
For once, a Republican didn't flinch.
And Cory Booker's face told the story better than any ad ever could. The man who has spent years performing outrage for the cameras had nothing ready for a Navy vet who actually served in the Persian Gulf. "Yahoo foreign policy," he called it — because in the modern Democrat playbook, strength is a punchline and weakness is virtue.
Murphy wasn't calling for a new war. He was calling for the one Trump already started to be finished, decisively — the same thing most patriotic Americans want when their sons and daughters are put in harm's way. Half-measures in the Middle East are how you get four decades of grief. Murphy understands that. Booker's donors understand it too, which is why he had to sneer at it.
New Jersey hasn't sent a Republican to the Senate since 1972. If the applause in that hall is any indication, the old math might not hold.
Patriots, keep your eyes on this race.
